


Soft Interlude

by Eggling



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: M/M, almost all obviously two/jamie and the rest are intended to be, just 31 days of prompts for sketchtober!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:47:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 31
Words: 46,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26663179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eggling/pseuds/Eggling
Summary: 31 short fics for October.
Relationships: Second Doctor/Jamie McCrimmon
Comments: 28
Kudos: 31





	1. Delicious

**Author's Note:**

> all prompts taken from [this open sketchtober prompt list](https://alexdecampi.tumblr.com/post/628082622054187008/if-anyone-is-looking-for-an-open-use-whatever)!
> 
> on [tumblr](https://the--highlanders.tumblr.com/tagged/sketchtober-2020).

The crowd milled around Jamie, engulfing him, masses of creatures – of _people_ , he reminded himself – towering over him until he had entirely lost his bearings. He stared after a few of them as they went by, first one, then another, wondering where they came from and where they were going. Some were laden with brightly-coloured bags, others heaving crates or rattling cages, and still others bustling to and fro in smart uniforms. Not one of them paid him any mind as they passed, too concerned with their own business. Once or twice, he opened his mouth to speak to someone as they passed, but they were always gone before he could think of what to say.

_Just wait there a minute_ , the Doctor had said. _I shan’t be long_. But he had been gone a good deal longer than a minute, and the more Jamie replayed his words in his mind, the more he began to chafe at them. He was not a child, after all. He was perfectly capable of looking after himself, even if he was alone on a strange alien planet. And if the Doctor was happy to wander off without a second thought, then surely there was nothing keeping him from doing the same. He stepped forward – bumped into some towering creature that seemed entirely made up of transparent tentacles – yelped at the sudden, inexplicable pain that lanced up his arm – and stumbled backwards into someone else, spluttering and shaking his head.

“Good gracious, Jamie.” That someone spun him around to face them, fussing over his shirt collar and smoothing down his sleeves. The paper bags they held in one hand brushed against his chest, leaving a greasy mark there. “Are you quite alright?”

Of course it was the Doctor, Jamie thought. Just as he had began to think that he might be able to cope on his own for once. But the crowd was even more daunting now, hemming the two of them into their own little bubble, and he ducked his head to grin bashfully up at the Doctor. “Aye, I’m fine.” Even as he spoke, his hand twitched violently of its own accord, and he stared down at it in wide-eyed alarm. “What just happened?”

“Oh, I shouldn’t worry about it.” The Doctor waved his own hand, as nonchalant as if people’s bodies moved on their own all the time. “Humans weren’t meant for contact with the Thryx, that’s all.”

“Eh?”

“That fellow you bumped into just now.” Jamie glanced over his shoulder, scowling after them. “Oh – oh, no, it’s quite alright, it isn’t their fault – it’s just a little residual electrical energy. They can’t help it, it’s simply how their nervous system works.”

“Oh, aye.”

“It’ll wear off soon enough.” Flashing him a triumphant smile, the Doctor held up the pair of bags he was holding. “I know I’m a little late, ah – there was a terrible queue.”

All Jamie’s earlier irritation was draining away from him at the sight of the Doctor’s earnest expression. “That’s alright.” He made as if to bump his elbow against the Doctor’s, but his limbs felt swollen and clumsy, and he settled for knocking their hips together instead. Only after he had stepped away did he realise how intimate the motion had been, and a shudder ran through him, as powerful as the one the Thryx had given him. “I dinnae think I’ll be able tae hold it, though. Can we sit down?”

“Ah – yes, of course.” Taking his arm, the Doctor wove through the crowd with a deftness that belied his usual clumsy nature, ducking and weaving past the taller aliens until they reached the fountain at the centre of the great plaza. The liquid spraying from the top was too thick to be water, falling back into the basin in great purple globs. It was hardly a picturesque sight, but something about the motion was oddly soothing, and Jamie was reluctant to tear his eyes away as the Doctor pressed him down onto a bench. “There we are.” He leant back, folding his arms behind his head and tilting his face up to let the light of the suns fall on his eyelids. “So, what do you think of your first intergalactic port planet?”

_Busy_ , Jamie wanted to say – but that hardly captured it. “It’s like -” He swallowed, his cheeks reddening at the thought of saying something so silly to the Doctor, but he pressed on. “Back home, we used tae go down to the beach to collect seaweed, right. To put on the crops. An’ one time, when I was a wee lad, I walked out into the sea. Only got up to my chest in it before _athair_ – before my father came an’ pulled me out, but – och, I’m no’ makin’ sense, am I?”

The Doctor had opened his eyes again to watch him with a strange sort of softness in his expression. “You’re making perfect sense.

The way the Doctor was looking at him made his heart flutter uncomfortably in his chest, and he swallowed thickly, looking down at his lap. “No, I’m no’,” he said, carefully lightly. If he could turn it into a joke – if the Doctor was joking too – then he would not have to think so hard about why every nerve in his body felt like it was burning. “But that’s what it feels like. Like goin’ into somethin’ so much bigger than yourself, an’ ye feel like ye might drown.”

“That’s a rather charming way of putting it,” the Doctor said. His tone was equally light – but his words were equally careful, as if he were picking his way along the same precarious path that Jamie felt himself struggling to cling to. Perhaps he was – or perhaps it was just wishful thinking. “Now – yes, the pastries. We shouldn’t let them get cold.”

He held out one bag for Jamie to reach into, but the opening was too small for Jamie’s still-unresponsive fingers, no matter how hard he tried to force them inside. “How long did ye say it would take for me tae get better?”

“Mm.” The Doctor tapped his fingers against his lips. “I didn’t. Five minutes? Half an hour?”

It was ridiculous enough that Jamie would have burst into laughter if he had not been so worried. “There’s a hell of a lot of difference between five minutes an’ half an hour, ye know.”

“Yes, I suppose there is.” The Doctor reached into the bag himself, pulling out the pastry inside. Its bright green surface shimmered like the sun on waves as he turned it over, and Jamie shook his head, struggling to focus his eyes on it. “I’ll simply have to hold it for you, then.”

“Hey – Doctor -” Jamie spluttered out a protest, but the Doctor was already pressing the pastry against his mouth. He glared at him over the top of it, but took an obliging bite anyway. “Mm.”

“What do you think?”

He nodded, chewing thoughtfully, wondering exactly what the thing tasted like. It could almost have been apples, but there was something pleasantly sour about it that he could not put his finger on. “’S good,” he managed. “Really good.”

“Splendid.” The Doctor beamed, and there was that awful feeling in his chest again, like the twitching in his fingers had reached his heart. Maybe it had, he thought. Maybe there was some terrible side-effect the Doctor had neglected to tell him about, and he was going to collapse. “Didn’t I say you’d like them?”

“Aye, ye did.” The Doctor was holding the pastry to his mouth again. This time he glanced around surreptitiously before taking a bite, his skin crawling with the thought of even a passer-by so much as sparing them a glance. This could hardly be allowed, he thought. Not in broad daylight, in the middle of a public place. Not when the Doctor was still looking at him with his eyes so soft around the edges. “Doctor?”

“Mm?”

_I do have one good arm_ , he wanted to tell him – opened his mouth to say – _You don’t have to be feeding me_ – but he did not want him to stop, not really. The Doctor swiped his thumb over his cheek, wiping away a smudge of something that might have been icing sugar, and scrubbing away any coherent thoughts from Jamie’s mind along with it. The place he had touched was left tingling long after the contact was gone, and Jamie was briefly glad that his numb arm stopped him from reaching up to touch the spot himself. “Nothin’,” he said faintly.

“Alright, then.”

“Just -” Jamie twisted around to face him, fumbling to take the Doctor’s hands and press them against the bench to hold him still. His swollen fingers were still burning with the shock, and the strange coolness of the Doctor’s skin against his own felt amplified a thousand times. “I – I like bein’ here. With ye.” Even as he spoke, the words sounded so pitifully small, far too little to capture the pounding of his heart. But all the things he wanted to say were trapped beneath his skin, caught in his throat, the mere thought of them leaving him trembling like a cornered wild animal. _You’re too good for me. I don’t know what I can do for you in return. It hurts when you look at me all soft like that, and I know you don’t mean what I want you to mean, but I never want you to stop_.

“I’m, ah.” The Doctor glanced away, his expression flickering into something that looked dangerously like wistfulness for the briefest of moments. Wishful thinking again, Jamie told himself sternly. “I’m glad.”

_I wish I knew what you were thinking_.

“Aye, well. Good.”

_I wish I could forget about what I’m thinking_.

“Quite.”

They sat in silence, facing carefully away from each other, their hands still pressed tightly together.

_I love you_.


	2. Soft

The great city bobbed its way serenely through the peachy orange sky, blanketed in a thick mist that dulled the glint of the sun on its glass rooves and sank into the pores of its sandstone walls. The Doctor pushed the window open a little more with the back of his hand, leaning out just far enough that the noise from the street below drifted up to break through the heavy silence of their dark room.

Behind him, Jamie flopped down onto the bed with a soft _thump_. “Isn’t this great?”

“Mm.”

“It’s so soft.” Turning, the Doctor found him tearing off a piece of the bed’s slowly-shifting surface. He ran it through his hands, worrying it until it came apart in strands like a ball of cotton wool, then let it slip through his fingers to meld back into the rest of the bed. The sight made him laugh delightedly, and the Doctor could not help but smile at the sound. “What’s it made of?”

“I’m not quite sure, to tell you the truth.” The Doctor ambled over to sit beside him, tugging out a chunk of his own to examine it. “It’s a closely guarded secret, you see – they’re not all too keen on letting outsiders into the factories. I suppose they’re worried their secret might be stolen. But I do know it’s something in the atmosphere here. They, ah, they make most of their cloth from it – they call it _stitched clouds_.”

_Stitched clouds_. Jamie mouthed the words to himself, running his hand through the thin layer of fog rising from the blankets. “It looks like magic.”

“It might as well be. This is a very unusual planet.”

“Have ye been here before?”

“Ah – no. I’d meant to, but – things always got in the way.”

Grinning, Jamie nudged his side. “Ye mean ye couldnae land the TARDIS here.”

“Of course I could!” The Doctor leant away from him, drawing himself up indignantly. “She’s not too keen on the place, I’ll admit – it’s rather, ah, _complicated_ , landing on a gas giant – but nothing she – _I_ – can’t handle.”

“Aye, whatever ye say.” Still grinning, Jamie looked down at his hands, locking and unlocking his fingers thoughtfully. The smile slowly faded from his face to be replaced by something more melancholy, but it took him a long moment to speak again. “Why are we here?”

“I, ah -” Reaching into his pocket, the Doctor wrapped his fingers around the cold metal of the TARDIS’ remote control. He could – it would be so easy – Jamie had asked, after all – but now was not the right moment. Oh, he was being a coward, he knew, but there was no reason to ruin the entire outing for Jamie. For them both. They could have at least one day of peace together. “No particular reason,” he finished hastily, keenly aware that Jamie was watching him curiously, perhaps even a little suspiciously. “No reason at all.”

“If ye say so.” Jamie was still watching him out of the corner of his eye. “You’ve been awfully nice tae me lately, is all I’m saying.”

Ah. He had been rather hoping that Jamie would not notice that. “Can’t I be nice to you for no reason?”

‘Aye, ‘course ye can, but – ye just seem like you’re...” Jamie sighed. “Och, I don’t know. Butterin’ me up for something.”

He had struck so close to he truth that the Doctor was not sure whether to laugh at the absurdity of it all or retch with the sickening ache of knowing what he had to do. “What could I possibly do that for?”

Jamie shrugged. “I’m sure you’d have your reasons.”

Another thing that was entirely too on-the-nose. He had been telling himself that for weeks, perhaps months. Even now, a part of him was still whispering those same words. _It’s kinder not to tell him. Let him believe everything is still as it was before_. It was not a truth he wished to know himself, after all. Why should he burden Jamie with it?

“I just thought you might enjoy a trip to somewhere nice, that’s all.” The words burnt his throat with shame as they left him. “We haven’t had much proper time together lately.”

“Don’t I know it.” The bitterness in Jamie’s voice took him by surprise. “Seems like we’ve had nothin’ but trouble everywhere we go lately. It’s no’ like it used to be. An’ ye might be bein’ nice to me, but you’ve been – och, I don’t know. Actin’ all funny. Takin’ off into the TARDIS to be on your own more than ye used to.” When he looked up at the Doctor, there was a sort of quiet tiredness written there that the Doctor had not seen for many years, not since Jamie had first been finding his feet on board the TARDIS, and his heart sank at the sight.

“You sound like Victoria,” he murmured. “When she decided to leave us. If you’re not -” He swallowed, feeling as if it would break one of his hearts to say it – keenly aware that it would break both of his hearts if Jamie said yes – but it had to be said. “If you want to go home, Jamie -”

“Are ye kickin’ me out?”

“No!” The Doctor stared at him. “I’m simply asking – do you want to go?”

“No.” Jamie had fixed his eyes determinedly on the floor, clutching his hands tightly enough to whiten his knuckles. “I thought maybe ye didnae want tae – ye know. Be with me anymore.”

“Oh – oh, _Jamie_.” The Doctor reached for him hesitantly, and Jamie reached back instinctively, tucking himself against his side and settling his head on the Doctor’s shoulder. “Not that. Never that.” He rubbed his hand up and down Jamie’s back, pressing hard enough to feel his fingers move up and down over the bones of his spine. “I’ve had a lot on my mind, that’s all.”

“Then why won’t ye tell me?” Jamie’s voice was muffled against his shirt, but no less plaintive for it. “I thought that’s what we agreed. That I’d tell ye everythin’ important, an’ you’d tell me everythin’ important.”

“Well, yes – and I _do_ , for the most part – but it isn’t always as simple as that, you know.”

“It should be.” The last thing he needed was Jamie taking his hand and looking at him so earnestly that he almost let the truth spill out of him there and then. “I know there’s things ye dinnae like talkin’ about, about where ye come from, an’ things – an’ I’m not asking ye tae say them, ye know I don’t need tae know everythin’ – but I cannae bear tae see ye sad an’ not be able tae help.”

“You do help.” The Doctor lifted their clasped hands to press them against his chest. The warmth that radiated out from Jamie began to seep into his skin, and he squeezed his hand tighter until he realised Jamie was screwing up his face in discomfort. “Oh – oh, I am sorry, Jamie, dear.”

Jamie laughed at that, batting at him with his free hand before turning away to press his sleeve over his face. “Don’t go sayin’ it like that,” he mumbled. “Like it’s the worst thing in the world. Ye only held my hand a bit too tight.”

“Well, perhaps I can’t help saying it like that.” He thought again of the tiredness on Jamie’s face, of when he had seen it before. Whatever kindness he had seen in hiding the truth from him paled before the memory of those days, when Jamie had given over too many sleepless nights to thoughts of the war that had so haunted him. That still did so, now, when he had been taken back to it so recently. He could not in good conscience make Jamie feel that lost again. “I don’t want to hurt you, Jamie.”

“Aye, I know.”

“Which is why I haven’t told you what – what we’ve been doing. I’ve wanted to, but -” He drew in a deep breath, bracing himself for the rebuke he knew would come. “I thought you would be happier, not knowing.”

“I’m not.”

“I know.”

“Ye can’t just -” Jamie pressed his hand over his face a little harder for a brief moment, then looked up to meet the Doctor’s eyes. “Ye can’t just decide what’s good for me, ye know.”

“Yes, I do know. And I was going to tell you – that’s what all this was about, to have one last day of freedom before I told you.”

“An’ we’ve had a lovely morning. And I won’t be able tae enjoy the rest of it until ye tell me. So that’s what you’re going tae do.” Jamie took the Doctor’s other hand in his own and pressed them both against his chest, holding them firmly in place. “You’re going tae tell me everythin’, an’ then ye won’t be alone anymore.”

The truth of it had been sitting in the Doctor’s throat for so long, but now when he needed to speak he could not find the words. Only minutes before it had seemed such a simple thing, for all the hurt behind it, such an easy matter to pull the remote control from his pocket and say, _here, we’re the puppets and here’s the strings_. Such an easy matter to say _Zoe’s gone_ and _oh, how I missed you_ , and _I think a piece of me is gone, too_. To say _do you still want to do this, with them watching over us? Do you still want to spend your life with me, when I can barely live with myself?_

“I don’t know where to start,” he murmured.

Jamie squeezed his hands – almost tight enough to hurt, but sure and steady enough to ground him. “Start at the beginning,” he said, just as softly.

He was watching him with a sort of gentle expectation, and perhaps that was the worst of it – that however much he teased and prodded, Jamie always knew when to lapse into endless patience and more kindness than the Doctor deserved. The least he could do, he supposed, was be kind in return.

Reaching into his pocket, he slid out the remote control.

“I’m a Time Lord,” he began. “From a planet called Gallifrey. You’ve been there once – though you don’t remember it yet. They put me on trial and took your memories away...”


	3. Winged

The great glass bubble was taunting him.

Leaning towards it, Jamie let himself hang slightly into the cavern where the glass bowed outwards, just enough that he could see where it curved back in to meet the body of the ship. The vast expanse of space stretched out beneath him, broken only by the enormous curve of a planet, and he knew it was not the slight distortion of the image through the glass that was making his head spin. He hurriedly focused his eyes on the thick band of metal and plastic and rubber between the glass and the solid floor beneath him, but that too made his stomach churn as he took in the nuts and bolts and joints. That was all that stood between him and the _emptiness_. The Doctor had told him what would happen if he were to step outside the ship unprotected, and for once there had been no need for him to add the unspoken _so don’t wander off_!

Sitting down heavily, he stared up instead, focusing on the tiny pinpricks of light that dotted the darkness. He had never seen the stars so bright, not even on the clearest, coldest winter nights at home. Then, standing on the surface of the Earth, their light had been dimmed by the greater glow of the moon. Now, sitting cross-legged on a spaceship orbiting God-knew-what planet, the sky was bustling with them, the slow motion of the ship setting them into a cosmic dance. But as beautiful as the sight was, it still made him feel a little sick.

He swayed forwards, readying himself to lean out again, but the ship lurched before he could. Flinging himself backwards, he shuffled around hurriedly to set his back to the window and focused instead on the solidity of metal railings and shiny plastic floors. For an observation ship, the window decks hardly seemed welcoming, he thought. The least they could have done was put in a seat or two.

His eyes had drifted half-closed when the door slid open, and he sat bolt upright, staring out wildly until his eyes settled on the Doctor. Even then, he could not entirely relax until he saw that he was wandering unhurriedly inside, no unexpected disaster making him leap from place to place like some sort of harried bird. He came to sit beside Jamie, facing towards the window but close enough that their shoulders bumped together.

“Not enjoying the view?” he asked.

“Eh?” Jamie twisted around to glance out the window again, then realised that the Doctor was looking at the way he was sitting. “Oh. No, it’s – fine. More than fine.”

“It’s, ah – rather a lot to take in, isn’t it?”

To Jamie’s embarrassment, the laughter that escaped him was more than a little shaky. “Aye, ye could say that.”

“Ben and Polly went up to the holographic restaurant,” the Doctor carried on. “I’m still not quite sure what a holographic restaurant _is_ , in this time period – or on a cheap tourist ship like this. But if you’re done here...”

Going to a restaurant was not exactly the first thing on Jamie’s mind, with his stomach still unsettled from the window – but he could hardly say no without explaining the matter to Ben and Polly afterwards. “Aye, if ye like.” The Doctor would not laugh at him, he reminded himself firmly. No matter how silly he felt, he would be kind – but still he hesitated. It seemed awfully foolish to say that he had been here all this time without working up the courage to take a proper look outside the ship, but that was the inescapable truth of the matter. “I, erm...”

“Mm?”

The Doctor had produced a small fruit from somewhere within his pockets and begun to peel it methodically. Whether it was an alien fruit or simply one of the strange ones that Ben and Polly insisted came from Earth, he could not tell, but the Doctor’s distraction spurred him on. “I didnae really look outside.”

“Oh!” The Doctor seemed content enough not to ask him why, and he let out a soft breath of relief. “Would you like to?”

_Why do you think I haven’t looked yet?_ he wanted to say – but to his surprise, when he opened his mouth, the word that came out was – “Yes.”

“Splendid.” Shoving the fruit back into his pocket, the Doctor pushed himself up onto all fours and crawled over to the window. “Come along, then.”

The sight of him crouched there in his too-big coat was so entirely ridiculous that Jamie could not help but laugh. “I love ye.” The words slipped out of him unbidden, and something about saying them so freely sent a rush of excitement through him, just enough to push him up onto his hands and knees. He joined the Doctor in front of the window, but quickly squeezed his eyes shut against the view.

“It’s quite alright,” the Doctor was saying soothingly. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. This glass is immensely strong, you know – it could support the weight of ten elephants. We’re hardly going to break it.”

Reluctantly, Jamie squinted through one eye, then another. When he did not immediately fill too dizzy to carry on, he opened both eyes properly, looking down to take in the planet spinning slowly below them. “It’s -” He shook his head. No words seemed quite enough to describe the sight of it, or how small he felt looking down over it. Half of the planet was cast into shadow, and a spidery network of lights criss-crossed the continents, some of them clustered together, others spread far apart. He tried to imagine how large those clusters really were, how small he would be if he was seen from so high, but he did not know where to start. “Well, it’s -”

“Quite.” The Doctor was watching him closely, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

“It’s funny, I’ve got – I’ve got two languages, ye know, an’ I cannae think of anything tae say in either of them.”

“Nothing at all?”

He shrugged. “ _Tha e glé mhòr_ , that’s all.” To his surprise, the Doctor burst into laughter. Whether he had known the words or instinctively understood what it meant, Jamie did not know, but he laughed along with him and repeated it in English anyway. “It’s very big.”

The Doctor murmured something unintelligible, and he turned to look at him quizzically. Only when he repeated it did Jamie realise it had not been spoken in English, nor in any other language he even vaguely recognised. It was something smooth, lilting, almost melodic, and the Doctor had spoken it with the same secretive quietness that he had heard in men who had spent a time outside the Gàidhealtachd, as if he had long since fallen out of practice in using it anywhere but in his own mind.

“What does it mean?” he said softly.

The Doctor smiled, the edges of his eyes crinkling with affection, and Jamie understood his gratitude. “ _It’s very big_.”

Jamie grinned back at him, pressing his side against the Doctor’s so their shoulders rubbed together. “What’s that planet, then?”

“What’s that -” The Doctor frowned. “It’s the Earth, of course. I thought you’d have known.”

“Earth?” Jamie stared back at him, then down at the planet below them. “You’re pullin’ my leg.”

“I can assure you, I am not.”

“That’s never Earth.”

“It most certainly is.”

“But Earth’s not -” He waved one hand at it, opening and closing his fingers as if he could pluck the right words from thin air. “It’s – it’s _huge_.”

“Yes, it is.”

“An’ it’s -” He leant out further, all fear forgotten in his disbelief and amazement. “It’s beautiful.”

“Yes, it is, isn’t it?” The Doctor leant out beside him. “I’m afraid I can’t show you Scotland. We’re in a geostational orbit, you see, fixed on the other side of the planet – but that most certainly is your home.” He tapped his fingers against the glass thoughtfully. “I, well – I thought you might appreciate seeing it like this. All of you,” he added, jerking his head up by way of pointing towards Ben and Polly.

The thought left Jamie breathless, any and all words stolen out of his mouth. He could think of nothing else to do but lean over to kiss the Doctor, lifting one hand to graze his fingers over his cheek and into the hair that curled against the side of his face. When he pulled away, the Doctor’s eyes remained closed for a moment too long, his lips slightly parted, looking utterly blissful. “Ah,” was all he said.

“No need tae look so surprised,” Jamie said, grinning. “It’s no’ like I’ve never done that before.”

“Well – no, I suppose not. But it’s not often you’re so – casual.”

Jamie kissed him again, quicker this time. “I’ll have to fix that, then.”

“I certainly wouldn’t complain.” Slapping his hands against the window, the Doctor sat back on his haunches to take in the full view. “How does it make you feel?” He tilted his head towards the stars. “Looking out there, I mean.”

“Like -” Kissing the Doctor still set his whole nervous system aflame, even after a few weeks of being allowed to do so, and he struggled to drag his thoughts back to the window. His mind could only cope with so many overwhelming things at once. “Like I’ve got wings.” He could have been talking about the window, he supposed, though he knew that was not what he had been thinking of.

“I’m glad.” The Doctor stood up, holding out his hand for Jamie to take and haul himself up with. “I expect Ben and Polly have saved us seats at the restaurant – but we can always come back here afterwards.”

“I’d like to.” The soft smile Jamie threw him quickly turned to a more pointed grin. “Come on, then. I’ll kiss ye over the ice cream an’ make ye blush.”

“Jamie, I will have you know, I do _not_ blush -”

“Aye, ye do.”


	4. Curvy

“So.” Scuffing his boot against the ground, Jamie ducked his head to grin up at the Doctor. “That was poetry, eh?”

The Doctor was gazing up at the sky, apparently oblivious to the gentle teasing in Jamie’s voice. “ _Wasn’t_ it just? A very fine example of Ts’uiin verse, I’d say.” Bringing his eyes back down to earth again, he exchanged a wave with a cheerful huddle of aliens peeling off from the crowd of chattering theatregoers. “And they’re such friendly people, too.” Jamie craned his neck after them, trying to figure out of they had been the group they had sat beside or the ones they had spoken with during the interval – but they were too far out into the dark, and he had not quite mastered the art of telling Ts’uiin apart by the shape of their fins.

A shower of powdery white dust tumbled over him, working its way in between his jacket hood and his hair to tickle at the back of his neck. The sensation made him flinch, and he slapped his hand against it as if to squash an insect. “What was that?”

More of it was falling around them now, and the Doctor was turning slow circles as they walked, hands held up to catch a few flakes. “Just dust from the asteroid system making planetfall. Perfectly normal.” He beamed up at it, as delighted as if it was first snow. “What did _you_ think of the poem?”

“Wasnae exactly what I was expecting,” Jamie said. “I know ye’d told me it was a bunch of numbers, but – I thought maybe it’d rhyme, or somethin’.”

“Oh – oh, my word, I quite forgot you were hearing it in translation.” The Doctor linked his arm through Jamie’s, steering him away from the crowd and down a cobbled, haphazard side-street. No light shone from any of the windows, but the vents on the edges of the street were blowing out warm air – excess steam from the heating system that kept the Ts’uiin’s blood warm, the Doctor had said. It was a strange thing, he mused, to be walking down a street that he might have seen in his own time, back on Earth, and to know that he was thousands of miles away, amongst aliens that wrote poetry in numbers and travelled amongst the stars. But perhaps it was a night for topsy-turvy things. “There’s rather more of a rhythm to it in the original Ts’ii, I would imagine. But, ah – it’s an equation at heart, whatever way you hear it. Most of the beauty is in what it describes, rather than the words.”

“When ye put it like that, it sounds like -” Jamie snapped his mouth shut hastily. He had intended to say _like real poetry_ – but it _had_ been real poetry, just of a different sort. And besides, the Doctor had been so ecstatic about the whole thing, and he had no desire to burst his bubble of enthusiasm. “Sounds like any old poetry,” he finished clumsily. “But it’s no’ really, is it?”

“It is and it isn’t.” The Doctor nodded to himself, as if he had said something profound. “I’m sure there’s poetry from your Earth that wouldn’t sound any more familiar to you than that did.”

He was fond of saying that, Jamie thought. _Your Earth_. As if he was trying to distance himself from the rest of them, even as he wandered along clutching at Jamie’s arm and tilting his head over to bump it against his shoulder. The thought sent a shiver down his spine that had nothing to do with the chill that was settling into the night air.

“What’s it describing, then?” he asked, a little too loudly. “The poem we heard.”

To his relief, the Doctor gave no sign of having noticed his sudden awkwardness. “The shape of the universe.”

Jamie blinked at him, then stared up at the sky as if it could offer up some explanation. The stars simply glinted back at him, as distant and inscrutable as ever. “Does it have a shape?”

“Well – well, it’s made of _stuff_ , isn’t it?”

“Stuff?”

“Mm. Stuff.” The Doctor nodded along like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “So it has to have a shape, doesn’t it?”

Jamie shrugged. “’Spose so. What shape is it, then?”

Pursing his lips, the Doctor tilted his head back and forth thoughtfully. “Sort of – curvy, I suppose.”

The thought was so absurd that Jamie had to throw back his head and laugh. He quietened himself down when the Doctor made hurried shushing motions, glancing pointedly at the darkened windows of the houses around them, but his softer giggles were not so easily suppressed. “The universe is curvy.”

“Mmhm.”

“ _Curvy_.” Jamie shook his head, gesturing wildly, but all the words he knew had flown out of his head. He had never imagined that the universe was finite enough to be _curvy_ , of all things – but then again, he supposed, the asteroid they were standing on seemed flat enough until you got high enough above it. What would the whole universe look like, he wondered, if he were to float over it and see its shape? The thought was too much for him to give voice to, and he settled for, “why?”

“For the same reason anything is shaped like anything. It grew that way.”

“Could it have grown differently?”

“Of course.” The matter-of-fact way the Doctor said it made his head spin faster. “Plenty of others have. And our universe might still decide it wants to be a different shape.”

“Oh.” It was hardly the most intellectual of responses – but Jamie could not imagine what else he could possibly say. “Aye. Well, then.” He glanced back up at the sky, trying to imagine that out there, through the darkness, there were other universes that were a different shape to his, of all things. Maybe they were like bubbles in a fast-flowing river, all pressing up against each other, sometimes bursting open and leaving others to crowd up into their place. Or maybe they were like leaves, overlapping and casting shadows over each other. Or maybe they were nothing like bubbles, or leaves, or anything he could possibly wrap his head around. “An’ they think it’s beautiful, do they? The Ts’uiin, I mean.”

“Yes, they do.” The Doctor was smiling softly to himself, as if he was cradling something small and precious in his hands. “What could be more beautiful than trying to capture the essence of the world? Your poets do the same, you know.”

“Some of them, maybe.”

“Some of them.” Swinging their clasped hands between them, the Doctor skipped a little faster along the street, pulling Jamie after him. “What do you think? Is the shape of the world beautiful?”

Jamie’s thoughts were still whirling around inside him, too quick for him to grasp one tight enough to put it into words. He was still not entirely sure how a poem could be made out of numbers, let alone how it could tell someone what the universe looked like, or how a whole theatre of people could nod along and understand. But the Doctor was looking at him expectantly, and the soft sprinkle of dust and ash falling from the sky looked like show settling onto the rooftops and over their shoulders, and the night was bitingly cold but heat was radiating out from the houses they passed, and the world felt like it was holding them in a quiet little bubble of their own.

“I think it probably is,” he said.


	5. Sparkle

The Doctor sighed. “Such a pity that the observation deck was booked out.”

Ducking his head, Jamie struggled to suppress a smile. The Doctor had been huffing and moping about since they had been turned away from the entrance to the deck, and he had no doubt that it was quite pointed. “Such a pity,” he agreed, for what must have been the tenth time. “I know ye wanted tae see the meteor shower.”

“It wasn’t really at capacity, you know,” the Doctor said wistfully. “They only said it was so _his Grace the Duke_ –” he spat out the name with disgust – “wouldn’t have to brush up against too many ordinary people and risk getting the hem of his cape dirty.”

It was oddly charming, Jamie thought, that of all the distasteful people they ran into – corrupt businessmen and mad scientists and plotting politicians – that the Doctor’s most disdainful tone was reserved for people who refused to get their clothes messed up. “Aye, well. He’s that sort, isn’t he?” The soft huff of laughter that pushed its way past his lips was more full of scorn than amusement, and the Doctor laughed too, tossing Jamie a delighted smile at their shared irritation. “Thinks he’s too good for the rest of us.” He jerked his head towards the high brick fence running along the road beside them. “Doesnae even let people look at his land.”

“Mm.” The Doctor pressed his hands into fists, glowering at the wall as if he was imagining pulling it apart brick by brick. “Something of an unpleasant chap, I think. I’d rather like to give him a piece of my mind.”

“Maybe tomorrow, after he’s signed those papers tae get Ben an’ Polly out of jail, eh?” Grinning, Jamie ducked beneath a thick tree limb that hung over the path. He reached up to it as he passed, running his fingers over the bark – for all that it was coloured deep purple, the texture was comfortingly familiar – then stopped, lifting his other hand to pull on it experimentally. It did not bend or shake beneath his weight, and he stepped back, following the line of it as it curved over the wall to join with the trunk of a tree on the other side.

Ahead of him, the Doctor had realised he was still standing beneath the bough, and turned to see what he was doing. “Jamie, what -”

“Ye said ye wanted tae see the meteor shower, right?” Try as he might, it was too high for Jamie to lever himself onto. He dropped to the ground again, puffing and rubbing his reddened hands against his kilt. “Give us a leg up, won’t ye?” The Doctor hurried over obligingly, bending down so Jamie could push off him and scramble up into the tree. He lay there for a moment, pressed against the bark, then sat up and reached out to pull the Doctor after him. “ _Oof_. You’re no’ half heavy.”

“The Duke isn’t at home,” the Doctor pointed out. “So unless you’re planning on vandalism -”

“I’m no’,” Jamie interrupted. “I’m plannin’ on us seeing the meteor shower.” He edged his way further along the bough until he had crossed over the fence. “It’s a big tree. If we climb tae the top, we’re bound tae get a good view – an’ somewhere comfortable to sit, which is better than on that deck.”

“Oh!” The Doctor clapped his hands together in excitement, but quickly pressed them back against the bark when he wobbled slightly. “Jamie, you _are_ clever.”

Jamie snorted. “No’ really. I’m sure ye had somethin’ up your sleeve.”

“Well, of course – but I was only thinking along the lines of breaking and entering. Stargazing from the top of one of the Duke’s trees is so much more – romantic.”

“If that’s what ye think is romantic -” Jamie paused, putting his hands on his hips as he surveyed the branches in front of him. Picking out a sturdy-looking one, he hauled himself up onto it, grumbling as the impact of his stomach against the branch pushed the air out of him. “If that’s what ye think is romantic, then I’m a wee bit worried.”

“Don’t be silly.” The Doctor followed him up with uncharacteristic grace, his eyes gleaming with anticipation in the half-light. “There’s nothing more romantic than a little bit of, ah – harmless flouting of the rules. I haven’t been this silly since -”

“Last week, when ye told that ambassador he had – he had _an undiscovered particle for a brain_ , I think ye said.”

“And I thought we agreed never to speak of that.” The Doctor’s scowl softened into a satisfied smirk. “He was being idiotically obtuse, though.”

Shaking his head, Jamie clambered onto another branch. This one gave way to a pleasant enough crook in the trunk of the tree, and he tucked himself into it, throwing his legs over the branch and folding his arms behind his head. “In here, look.” Something flickered at the corner of his vision, and he looked up to see a streak of fire darting across the sky. It was gone before he could get a proper look at it, but there was only one thing it could have been. “Hey, it’s started!”

“Ah!” The Doctor scrambled into the hollow after him. “Wait for me!” he exclaimed, as if the sky would stay still until he had gotten himself comfortable. “Good gracious – a little ahead of schedule, isn’t it?”

“Dunno.” Another meteor arced its way across the sky, leaving a trail of blazing embers behind it. The sun was just dipping below the horizon, throwing out a backdrop of dusky pink that gave way to deep blue, broken only by the gold of the rings that surrounded the planet. It was a breathtaking sight, and Jamie found himself almost as enraptured as the Doctor looked to be.

“It only happens every couple of years,” he was saying softly. “There’s nothing quite like it on this side of the galaxy. Not with so many meteors, or such big ones.” Another was sailing along in the wake of its companions, sparkling as it went. “Or so close to us.”

The meteors were coming in groups now, filling the sky with reds and oranges and yellows. Some of them burnt up before they reached the horizon, leaving larger scatters of embers behind them. Once or twice, a truly huge chunk of stone hurtled past, faster and brighter than the others, occasionally knocking into them and sending them careening off course. The distant sound of cheering and music floated through the air, and Jamie could only imagine that it had come from the deck they had left behind, but he could not bring himself to feel even a little disappointed. Instead he simply reached over to gently unfold the Doctor’s fingers, pressing his hand into his own.

“Is it what ye thought it’d be?” he murmured.

The Doctor’s rapt silence said all he needed to hear.

They lay there watching the dusk turn slowly to night, until the plucked and pruned splendour of the Duke’s gardens were made wild by a thick darkness, and the burbling of fountains and landscaped streams was interspersed with the cries of wild animals outside the walls. The meteors carried on falling, gradually growing smaller and slower, only a few of them reaching the skyline.

“Jamie?” the Doctor murmured.

“Aye?”

“Thank you.”

Jamie squeezed his hand, twisting around a little to smile at him. He found them pressed together nose-to-nose, the Doctor already smiling back. “You’re welcome.”

Quiet fell over them for another few minutes, broken only by the soft rustling of the wind through the trees until the Doctor spoke again. “Jamie?”

“Mm?”

The Doctor opened his mouth, then closed it again, looking around them nervously. He shuffled away to peer over the edge of the hollow they were curled in, but quickly retreated back to Jamie’s side, pressing himself back down. “Well – you see -” He swallowed thickly. “It’s a little silly, you see.”

“It’s no’.” Rubbing his arm, Jamie tried to scrape together the most comforting expression he could muster. “We’ve had a lovely night, an’ Ben and Polly will be let out in the morning, an’ then we’ll go back tae the TARDIS.” He grinned. “Or maybe even teach that Duke a lesson first.”

“It’s not any of that.” The Doctor was squirming now, biting his lip as if he were physically holding the words inside himself. “It’s -”

“Aye?”

“I don’t know if I can get down.”


	6. Blossoming

_Well_.

Of course it would _just so happen_ , the Doctor thought, that they would land on Jhax-III just when the Festival of the Moon was at its peak. And of course it would be the day of the flower ceremony, when the town would be crawling with – with _couples_ arriving for the evening.

And of course, it was inevitable that someone would ask awkward questions about himself and Jamie.

He would be having stern words with the TARDIS when all this was over.

The Jhaxian standing in front of him was watching him with perfect friendliness, waiting politely for his reply, but when he opened his mouth, no sound came out. He snapped it shut, shook his head slightly, and tried again, but he could not think of what he could possibly say.

When a word did jump out of him, it was the worst possible thing he could have imagined saying. “Yes.”

The girl clapped her hands in delight, beaming up at him. “Oh, lovely! Are you here for tonight?”

“Y – yes.” People would have _assumed_ , no matter what he said, the Doctor told himself. What harm was there in letting them believe what they would, when he would likely never see them again? But letting people think their own thoughts and openly telling someone that he and Jamie were – without even having asked Jamie first – surely it was a terrible thing to have done. A terrible breach of Jamie’s trust. “I’m, ah -” He glanced around himself awkwardly. The hotel lobby was so crowded that he could hardly hope that nobody else would have heard. “It’s all rather new, you see.”

“The flower ceremony is just the thing for a new relationship.” The girl sighed contentedly, tilting her head against her shoulder for a brief moment. “My girlfriend took me there when we first started dating.” Shaking herself, she sat upright again and handed him a key. “There you are. Number twenty-four, third floor on the left.”

The cold metal of the keychain felt as if it could scorch a hole through the Doctor’s trembling hands. He mumbled his thanks, then turned around to see Jamie wandering through the crowded atrium, close enough to send terror lancing through him. Could _he_ have heard the conversation? Throwing a grateful nod to the girl at the reception desk, the Doctor darted over to Jamie, taking him by the elbow before letting him go hastily as if burnt.

“Ah – shall we go up to our room?” Realising what he had said, he slapped his hands against his sides. “That is – _the_ room.”

“Aye, if ye like.” Jamie hefted the strap of the bag he carried higher up onto his shoulder. “Are ye alright? Ye seem a wee bit – och, I don’t know. Flustered.” He leant in closer to examine the Doctor’s face – and that certainly wasn’t helping, the Doctor thought despairingly. “Ye havenae found some trouble, have ye?”

“No – no – nothing like that.” The Doctor braced himself, then took Jamie’s arm again and marched him up the stairs. The twin pounding in his ears drowned out Jamie’s spluttered questions. Only when he reached their room did he let him go, fumbling with the key and jabbing it anywhere but the keyhole.

“Here.” The gentleness in Jamie’s voice was worse than anything. He reached over to prise the Doctor’s fingers apart, taking the key from him and unlocking the door with ease. “What’s gotten into ye?”

“Nothing,” the Doctor said plaintively. Jamie threw a sceptical look over his shoulder as he dumped the bag beside the bed – the very much singular bed. “I’m perfectly normal.”

“No, you’re not.”

“I can assure you, I _am_ -”

“Hey.” Crossing the room, Jamie pressed on the Doctor’s shoulders until he sat down on the bed, then perched there beside him to put his hand on his shoulder. “It’s no good lyin’ to me, ye know I willnae believe it.”

The Doctor was tempted to mumble a bitter comment about _silly old fusspots who didn’t know any better than to pry_ – but the voice which had spoken the words in his mind did not quite seem like his own, and besides, Jamie was right. “I, ah – well, I made a mistake, you see -” Jamie was rubbing small, uneven circles on the Doctor’s shoulder with his thumb, and the sensation made his eyes flicker closed and sent his thoughts spinning out of his mind. “Oh, this is no good. Jamie -” Nothing to do but to say it all at once, he supposed. “Will you go to the flower ceremony with me?”

Oh.

Oh, dear.

When he dared open his eyes again, he was surprised to see Jamie looking more bemused than anything. “Aye, why not,” he said happily. “Sounds like fun.”

“No!” His sudden exclamation made Jamie jerk away from him, sitting up ramrod straight. “No, I – ah – I didn’t mean – that is to say, I didn’t mean to ask.”

“Oh.” Jamie’s shoulders slumped again, and regret needled at the Doctor’s chest. “So ye don’t want tae go with me?”

Jhax-III was only a small planet, the Doctor recalled. Barely more than an asteroid, really. Whatever hole he was digging for himself must be nearing its core by now. “I didn’t mean that either,” he mumbled. “I’d _like_ to go with you – but I hadn’t planned on asking, you see.”

“Oh.” Jamie sounded very much as if he did not, in fact, see – and the Doctor could hardly blame him, when he had gone ahead and asked anyway. “Why not?”

_Why not_. Absolutely typical, that he would make the Doctor spell it out as slowly and painfully as possible. “Ah – you are aware that this is an event for couples, aren’t you, Jamie?”

“Aye.” Jamie grinned. “I’ve had tae put up with Ben an’ Polly talkin’ about it.”

The thought was enough to make the Doctor smile, too. “They were rather – overexcited.”

“Aye, ye can say that again. But why didn’t ye want tae ask me?”

“ _Because_ ,” the Doctor said, as patiently as he could manage, “we’re not a couple.”

“Oh.” Jamie glanced down at his lap, where he was twisting his hands together. “Aren’t we?”

Hearing those words, the Doctor thought, must surely be what walking into a TARDIS unexpectedly would be like. They had been spoken so casually, as if they had not just taken his entire conception of the universe and spun it on its head. “ _Are_ we?”

Jamie’s cheeks were reddening now – and the Doctor was sure that colour was filling his own in return. “I thought we were.”

_How could we be a couple?_ the Doctor wanted to ask. There had been a – a _something_ , as of late, unspoken and sitting in between them. An odd sort of _closeness_ , a series of almosts. An almost cuddle when Jamie had fallen asleep during a movie. An almost don’t-leave-me late at night when Jamie had come into his room to borrow a book.

An almost-I-love-you when Jamie had thrown himself in front of a monster to protect him, and suffered the consequences.

And then – something that had not been an almost at all, when he had kissed Jamie and run off, and neither of them had said a word about it since.

“A- _are_ we?” he croaked out instead. “A couple, I mean?”

Jamie was well and truly red-faced now, looking as stricken as the Doctor felt. “If you want.”

He would never get a better chance than this, the Doctor supposed. Standing up, he took Jamie’s hands, squeezing them until Jamie looked up at him. “Jamie – will you go to the flower ceremony with me?”

The thought was still an utterly terrifying one. To have people assume – to _tell_ people, to tell strangers, let alone to tell Ben and Polly who knew them and who they would have to carry on seeing afterwards – it almost made his hearts stop. But Jamie was looking at him with such affection, and the idea of seeing that same look later that evening, in the dim glow of paper lanterns, while setting an air lotus into the sky together…

Perhaps, if he was exceptionally lucky, he might even get another kiss.

Jamie had stood up too now, so that they were slightly too close together. They wobbled a little, hands knocking against sides and foreheads against foreheads, but in that moment neither of them quite dared to give in to the instability, to lean in and close the distance.

“Aye.” In all their months of travelling together, he had never seen Jamie smile so brightly. “Aye, I’ll go with ye.”


	7. Companion

“Doctor!” Turning his torch towards a crack in the cave wall, Jamie jogged over to peer inside. “Over here.”

A small, dark figure was huddled there, pressed as far into the crack as she could manage. When Jamie reached out to her, she whimpered and leant away from him, and he stepped back hurriedly, dropping the torch light away from her face and grasping at the Doctor’s shoulder instead.

“Oh – oh, dear.” The Doctor knelt down beside her, brushing his hand over her hair. She did not shy away from him, instead glancing past him to squint at Jamie. “It’s quite alright. I know you, ah – you haven’t had the best experiences with humans – but there’s nothing to worry about, I promise.”

Jamie knelt down in imitation of the Doctor, setting the torch on the ground so he could hold his hands up. He smiled as comfortingly as he could, but she still hunched over against him, half-burying her face in her shoulder.

“Hello, Sorcha,” he said softly. “It is Sorcha, isn’t it?”

She uncurled a little, shuffling towards the light until he could see the glint of chitinous plates running down her spine. “Who is he?” Her voice was almost inaudible, her words directed towards the Doctor.

“He’s – a companion.”

The Doctor’s words all but knocked the air out of Jamie. He had assumed – had thought he _knew_ – that he meant more to him – but perhaps the Doctor did not care for him so much as he seemed to, if he was only willing to describe him as a _companion_ , of all things. He might as well have been a pet, he thought bitterly. But when the Doctor threw a glance towards him over his shoulder, he saw the uncertainty written on his face, and the remorse that mixed with it when he caught sight of Jamie’s own expression.

Turning back to Sorcha, the Doctor squeezed her shoulder. “He’s a… a friend.”

* * *

The light of the triple suns spilled carelessly across the field, pleasantly warm but bright enough that it forced Jamie’s eyes closed. He stretched out, murmuring a little noise of satisfaction, but quickly curled up again to press his hand over his mouth and muffle a sneeze. Trust the Doctor, he thought, to land on a planet full of pollen, and just when they wanted to -

The thought ended there, rather abruptly. Just what _were_ they doing? This was no simple outing between friends, not with Ben and Polly beating a tactful retreat to a nearby village, and the braided necklace the Doctor had bought him still strung about his neck. Not with the Doctor’s hand clasped firmly in his own and pressed against his chest, his head in the Doctor’s lap. But regardless of what this _wasn’t_ , neither of them had ever said what it _was_.

“Doctor?” he mumbled.

“Mm?”

“What are we gonnae call -” He waved his free hand around lazily. “This?”

“Well, I -” The Doctor paused in his rhythmic stripping of the blades of grass that surrounded them, sprinkling some of the debris over Jamie’s chest. “I’m not quite sure. Ah – I did ask Polly for ideas, but I don’t know – _boyfriend_ seems a little odd.”

Jamie could not help but laugh as he brushed the grass from his shirt. “I didnae mean that. I meant – its this a date?”

“Oh.” The Doctor fell quiet, and Jamie cracked his eyes open, squinting up at him in concern. “Oh, I see. Yes, if you want it to be.”

“I’d like it to be.” Rolling over again, Jamie brought the Doctor’s hand up to his mouth to kiss the back of it. “Anyway, what _would_ ye like tae call me?” Truth be told, he had spared more than a few thoughts to the matter himself, but nothing had ever seemed right. “I didnae realise you’d been thinkin’ about it so much.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” the Doctor huffed. “Nothing seems to quite fit. You’re my – my _Jamie_ , that’s all.”

Jamie smiled and squeezed the Doctor’s hand. “Aye. That I am.”

* * *

Closing his eyes, Jamie tilted his head up until he could see the warm glow of candlelight through his eyelids, and sighed.

It had been so long – too long – since he had been surrounded by the comforting hum of his own language. It might be different than in his day, full of words he did not recognise, a few endings dropped here and there, new numbers on the lips of the younger people, but it was unmistakeably his own. He drew in a deep breath, as if he could inhale the memory as well as the warm summer air.

The Doctor dropped down into the seat beside him, looking as if he had been about to say something, but he closed his mouth when he caught sight of Jamie’s contented expression. “Enjoying yourself?” he said at last.

“Mm.” Jamie leant over to rest his head on the Doctor’s shoulder. “Aye, I am. Thanks,” he added, lifting his head to press a kiss to the Doctor’s cheek.

“You’re quite welcome.”

“How are ye holdin’ up?” Jamie sat up again to watch the Doctor’s expression, grinning. “I hope ye didnae turn the translation thingy back on.”

The Doctor pulled one of his less convincing mock-offended faces. “I would do no such thing,” he said primly. “As a matter of fact, I think I’ve been doing rather well.”

Before Jamie could think of a reply, he realised that a man had come to sit next to them, leaning forward to catch their attention. He let go of the Doctor’s hand hurriedly, feeling the familiar coil of embarrassment in his stomach – but this was a night for being brave, he reminded himself. Taking firm hold of the Doctor’s hand again, he turned to nod to the other man. “ _Halò_.”

“ _Halò_ ,” the other man said cheerfully. “ _Tha i breagha a-nochd, nach eil? Is mise Donnchadh_.”

Jamie opened his mouth to reply, but the Doctor leant past him, holding out his hand. “ _Halò, a Dhonnchadh_ ,” he said, throwing a grin towards Jamie. “ _Is mise an Doctair, agus seo_ -”

“ _Tha mi a leannan_ ,” Jamie put in. He knew he was blushing terribly – but there was something oddly natural about saying it in his own language, a warm contentment that he had never felt with English. “ _Seumaidh_.”

He did not dare meet the Doctor’s eyes, but knew from how tightly his hand was being held that he was understood.

* * *

“Jamie!” The doors were flung open, and the Doctor burst inside, wild-eyed and frantic. “Oh – oh, Jamie -” His coat was even more rumpled than usual, his hair in disarray, a mottled bruise blooming over his cheek – but the sight of him was still so comfortingly familiar. Jamie reached out, and the Doctor rushed to him in return, kneeling by his bedside and clutching Jamie’s head to his chest.

“They said you were fine,” he was saying, fingers tangling in the hair at the nape of Jamie’s neck, his words almost too fast for Jamie’s still-muddled brain to follow, “but I was so worried about you, and so was Zoe, and there was so much blood – I wasn’t sure if we’d pulled you out of there in time -” He leant back to whack his hand gently against Jamie’s good shoulder, and only then did Jamie realise that the Doctor’s eyes were filled with uncharacteristic tears. “Oh, _Jamie_ ,” he said again, as if his name was all that needed saying. “Why did you have to go down there?”

Slowly, stiffly, still a little painfully, Jamie shrugged. “If I hadn’t, then ye would’ve. I couldnae let ye do it.” He glanced around, searching for a bundle of worried fury in the shape of Zoe. “Where’s Zoe? Is she -”

“She’s fine,” the Doctor said hastily. “They, ah – they wouldn’t let her up here.”

“Oh.” The bandages wrapped around Jamie’s chest were still tight, and his breathing was starting to turn ragged. He eased himself back against the pillows, and the Doctor all but followed him down, leaning over him concernedly. “Ach, get away with ye. I’m no’ that bad.” The Doctor snorted at that, and Jamie gave him a stern look. “So, one visitor at a time, is it?”

To his surprise, the Doctor’s equally determined expression faded, and he hung his head, looking anywhere but at Jamie. “Ah – no, not quite.”

“Not quite?” Jamie grinned. “Did ye break in?”

“No, I -” The Doctor mumbled something, too quietly for Jamie to hear.

“What did ye say?”

“I told them I was your husband.”

Jamie’s laughter quickly turned to splutters and wheezing as pain lanced through his sides. “Ye told them we were married?”

“I wasn’t entirely lying,” the Doctor mumbled, his cheeks distinctly orange beneath his purple bruises. “We’re _almost_ married.”

“We won’t be married until next week,” Jamie reminded him. “Wee daftie. An’ besides,” he added, “the wedding would’ve been off if I hadn’t gone down there an’ stopped that thing.”

“The wedding would’ve been off if we hadn’t have gotten you out of there,” the Doctor muttered to himself, but at last he softened, sighing. “Oh, I suppose you’re right.” The wetness in his eyes looked fit to spill over onto his cheeks, but he managed a watery smile through it. “You can be rather silly, you know, Jamie McCrimmon.”

“Aye, I know,” Jamie said. “An’ ye can be rather silly yourself, _Doctor McCrimmon_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> intended gaelic dialogue is:  
> 
> 
> _"Hello."_
> 
> _"Hello. It's lovely tonight, isn't it? I'm Duncan."_
> 
> _"Hello, Duncan. I'm the Doctor, and this is -"_
> 
> _"I'm his partner. Jamie."_
> 
> checking the grammar scrambled my single brain cell so I'm SO sorry if it's not quite right, I did my best but I'm far from being fluent ;w;


	8. Transform

“And then -” The Doctor leant forwards, holding his cape out to cast a shadow over the worried faces of the children clustered around him. “Bang! The dragon vanished, and when the smoke cleared -” He dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, and the children leant in to hear him better. “The dragon had been the prince all along! There was never any monster guarding the tower.”

Mouth twisting into a small, tired smile, Jamie tilted his head back to rest it against the wooden beam behind him. The stars were just visible through a chink in the canvas that they had draped into a makeshift shelter, and he stared up at them blankly. Beside him, Victoria murmured something in her sleep, turning over to press her head against his side. He tucked his arm around her shoulders idly, rubbing his hand over her arm in time with her slow breathing.

He was so awfully tired himself. Every muscle in his body seemed to be aching. The desert sand had wound its way so thoroughly into his clothes and hair and skin that he was sure no amount of washing would ever get it out. Closing his eyes, he let his head fall onto his shoulder. Surely there would be no harm in closing his eyes – just for a moment, until they were less heavy…

The next thing he knew, the Doctor was kneeling beside him, shaking him back into consciousness. Of course he had dozed off, he scolded himself, after a day’s walking over slippery sand dunes. When he lifted his head, grimacing at the stiffness in his neck, he saw that the children were all tucked into their ragged and patched blankets, quiet as mice. “That settled them down,” he mumbled, muffling a yawn behind his hand.

“Yes, it did, didn’t it.” The Doctor had not looked directly at him since he had properly opened his eyes, and he still sat half-turned away from Jamie, watching the children. “They’re darling little things, really. Just frightened.”

“Mm.” What little child wouldn’t be frightened, with a pack of beasties on their tail and a king baying for their blood. “They might die, ye know.”

“Yes.” At last, the Doctor looked over to meet his eyes unwaveringly. “They might.”

“They might die an’ you’re telling them stories about how the monsters aren’t so bad?” It was unfair of him to be so cynical, he knew, but he pressed on anyway. “Do you think it’ll make them feel safer, until the real monsters get them?”

Sighing, the Doctor sat down beside him properly. “You haven’t forgiven me for the Daleks, have you.” It was not a question, spoken with a sort of flat, resigned finality that he had almost never heard from the Doctor. “You must understand, Jamie, I had to -”

“I do understand,” Jamie interrupted him. “I know ye didnae have a choice, an’ that ye used it against them in the end. If anythin’ it just makes me angrier, that I do understand, an’ that I forgive ye for it.” The Doctor opened his mouth, but the look Jamie gave him made him fall silent again. “No, I don’t know why, either. I wish I did.”

The Doctor was quiet for a long time, long enough that Jamie wondered if he too had fallen asleep. When he eventually spoke up again, his words were so quiet that Jamie almost missed them. “You used to trust me.”

“I still trust ye.”

“Not like you did before. You used to think the best of me, then. And I had to be the best of myself, because disappointing you – well, it didn’t bear thinking about, up until it happened.”

Jamie sighed. “We’re gonnae do this now? With everythin’ that’s goin’ on?”

“We might not get another chance.”

“Aye, fair enough.” It was an odd thing, Jamie thought, that he had been boiling with anger and words unspoken for weeks, and now when he had a chance to say it all, everything had drained away. “I know why ye did it,” he began slowly. “An’ I know why I was angry – an’ I know _ye_ know why I was angry. And I know you’re sorry for it, an’ I forgive ye. Most of the time – I dinnae think about it.” He rolled his head over to bury his face in the Doctor’s shoulder, rubbing his cheek against the worn fabric of his coat. “I’m just tired, that’s all.”

“You’ve every right to be.” The Doctor reached up to touch his shoulder hesitantly, then put his arm around him when Jamie did not pull away. Victoria was still curled into his other side, the three of them anchored together against the howling of the wind above them. “You’ve done everything you could for those children.”

“Aye, an’ so have you.” Frustration was rising in Jamie’s chest, and he curled his hands into fists, pressing them against the dirt floor. His fingernails dug into his palms, but he did not flinch away from the biting pain of it. “Which is why I dinnae understand why I’m angry.”

The Doctor shrugged his free shoulder, careful not to disturb Jamie. “Humans are complicated creatures, I’ve learnt.” He sighed. “I didn’t intend anything with the story, you know. But maybe you’re right – maybe it wasn’t the right one to tell them. I wasn’t thinking.” He shuffled against the beam, settling himself deeper into the sandy floor. “Jamie?”

“Mm?”

“Do you think – things have changed forever? Or will they go back to how they were before?”

The same question had echoed around Jamie’s mind too many times for him to count. He had thought it in sadness, and in fury, and in the deepest pits of late-night worry when he wondered whether the Doctor really cared for him at all. But all his scepticism could not deny the Doctor’s care when he spoke to the children – when he comforted Victoria – when he was with Jamie himself.

“I think things have changed,” he said quietly. “But I dinnae think that’s a bad thing. Maybe I see ye as more real than I did before, ‘cause – ‘cause ye -”

“Made a mistake.”

“No. Had tae make an impossible decision, an’ for once ye didnae have a good answer.”

Whatever the Doctor had been expecting, it clearly had not been that. He did not answer for a long minute, stretching out his legs and looking up through the same hole in the tent that Jamie had found earlier.

“I think I like you more,” he said at last. “Because you got angry with me. I wouldn’t want you to – ah – well, to agree with everything I did.”

Jamie grinned. “How many times have I told ye that ye cannae drive the TARDIS?”

The sight of the Doctor’s wry smile gave him a flood of satisfaction. “Too many to count. But I don’t mean like that. You – you told me I was wrong.” His smile widened, turned wistful. “I only met you because someone told me I was wrong, a long time ago.”

“Aye, well.” Jamie smiled back at him, reaching over to bump his hand against the Doctor’s. “Here’s tae tellin’ ye you’re wrong, then.” He paused. “Ye keep puttin’ the empty milk cartons back in the fridge.”

“I didn’t mean like that -”

“An’ ye _never_ make the bed in the mornin’.”

“I don’t see the point, we’re only going to go to sleep and mess it up again -”

“An’ I’m still gonnae be angry with ye. Maybe for a long time.” The smile faded from the Doctor’s face, and Jamie put his arm around his waist hurriedly, drawing him in closer to his side. “But it’s no’ the end of the world. I’ll still love ye even when I’m angry.”

“Good.” The Doctor pressed his face into the crook of Jamie’s neck, nuzzling into the warmth of him in the way he did when he was tired. “I’m not lying to the children, you know. I’m trying to keep their hopes up. If they feel everything is lost – well, then we’ve got no chance at all.”

“Aye, I know.” Jamie squeezed first the Doctor, then Victoria, keeping a tight hold of them as if they might drift away in the night. “An’ they trust ye tae get them out of this.”

“Should they?”

He could count on one hand the number of times he had heard the Doctor sound so unsure. Letting go of his waist, Jamie reached over to tilt his chin up and look him in the eye.

“Aye,” he said firmly. “They should.”


	9. Fluffy

“Brutal and inhumane.” The Doctor was mumbling to himself, pacing back and forth down the corridor, crumpled sheets of paper clutched in one hand and a bundle of fluff cradled in the other. One side of the corridor was taken up by a great window into the courtroom, and he glanced through it restlessly, tapping his foot against the ground as the debate dragged on. “Brutal and inhumane… no, that won’t do. Nobody involved is human. Brutal and...”

“Callous,” Jamie supplied, leaning against the cool marble wall behind him with a sigh of relief. The ridges of the carvings that criss-crossed it dug into his back, and sand was still finding its way out of his clothes and hair to pool on the floor, but he was too exhausted from their mad dash across the desert to care. “You’ll be fine.”

“I’m not word-perfect yet,” the Doctor snapped back, and Jamie raised his hands in surrender, grinning. “Must see fit to… no.” Juggling the paper and the creature, he reached for the pen tucked behind his ear. It tumbled to the ground, its fall muffled by the thick carpet, and Jamie bent to hand it up to him. “Thank you, Jamie. I’m _sure_ you will see fit to -”

The door behind him creaked open, revealing a wide-eyed attendant. She looked first to Jamie, then to the Doctor, then to the creature in his arms. “They’re ready for you now, sir.”

“Oh! Oh, good gracious -” In his panicked shuffling of pen and paper and creature, the Doctor seemed to have twice as many hands as usual. “I do hope I’m – ah – take this, will you, Jamie?” He shoved the creature into Jamie’s arms, tapping his papers into some semblance of order.

The pen fell to the floor again, but Jamie was too busy staring at the thing in his arms to pick it up. “Don’t you need it in there?” was all he could manage.

“Oh, no. No, I doubt it.” The Doctor flicked his eyes towards the attendant, who hurriedly shifted her own gaze away from the creature to glance at her watch. “Might do more harm than good, if you know what I mean. But I’ll send someone out to let you know if we need you.”

“Aye, good. Doctor -” Halfway to the door, the Doctor paused. “Aren’t these things full of spines? How am I meant tae hold it?”

The Doctor shrugged. “As you are now. You won’t get poked if it trusts you. Now – I really must dash -” He let the attendant usher him in front of her, the door to the courtroom slamming shut behind them and clicking into place.

“Well.” Sitting down on the bench again, Jamie crossed one leg over the other and looked down at the creature in his arms. Most of its body was covered in thick white fur, but its face was naked, almost monkeyish with its snub nose and huge, dark eyes. “That just leaves us, hm?”

The thing stared back at him, tilting its head and blinking – then long, curved spines erupted out of its fur, making him yelp and snatch his hands away.

“Hey!” he exclaimed, fumbling to catch it before it could scurry away. “The Doctor said ye were meant tae be nice!”

The creature – beastly little thing, Jamie thought, didn’t know what was good for it – did nothing but purr.

“Aye, alright, alright, you’re a wee bit cheeky,” Jamie conceded. The thing’s white fur was patched with crimson now, and he hissed, holding up one hand to see blood beading across his palm. “Or a wee bit naughty, more like. But we have tae put up with each other while the Doctor’s in there, right?” He nodded towards the window, watching the Doctor be led up to a raised dais. “He’s doin’ it for you, ye know. An’ all your people.”

“ _Mrrp_ ,” was all the creature said.

Trying to settle it more comfortably in his arms as he had seen the Doctor do, Jamie stood up and crossed to the window. His legs were still a little unsteady beneath him, and he ended up kneeling in front of the window as the Doctor shook his notes out and began to read from them. “He’ll be fine. The evidence is – there’s too much of it, they cannae find the company innocent.” Fur ruffled from being bumped around, the creature turned its back on him to press its paws against the glass. “Hey, hey – are ye sulking?”

The Doctor was growing more agitated now, fidgeting and pacing before the stony-eyed judge and jury. He gestured wildly, one page flying out of his hand, then paused. Slowly, deliberately, he bent down to drop his notes on the floor.

“What’s he doin’?” Jamie lifted the creature up so it could see better, unable to tear his own eyes away from the Doctor. Silly of him, he thought – the creature did nothing but growl and stick its thumb-claw in its mouth. “He knew what he had to say, they’ll – they’ll never agree if he doesnae follow the rules.”

He had spent so long reassuring the Doctor that he would be fine, that there was no need to be nervous – and he had believed it, too, because if there was one thing the Doctor was good at, it was convincing people. But now, watching the Doctor gesture and argue with the passion he had been warned to leave outside the courthouse for fear of angering the people inside, he was beginning to feel more than a little nervous himself. He bounced the creature in his arms like it was a bairn, trying to focus on the rhythmic motion and forget about the Doctor, even as he kept watching.

The creature let out a soft mewl, then began to purr again, louder this time.

Jamie blinked down at it, too surprised to pay much attention to the jury as they mulled over the Doctor’s tirade. “Did ye like that?” Experimentally, he bounced it again. To his amazement, the creature nuzzled itself further into his chest, spines flattening fully and vanishing beneath its fur. “Ye _do_ like that! Is that what the Doctor meant, that your spines -” He lifted it a little, squinting up at the fur on its back in search of any trace of its spines. The noise it made could almost have been laughter. “Your spines go away when you’re happy?”

When the doors behind him burst open, he nearly dropped the creature in alarm. The Doctor came striding through, turning on the spot in excitement before skipping over to Jamie.

“Guess what?” he exclaimed.

Jamie stood up to meet him halfway. “Guilty?” The Doctor was beaming too much for it to be anything else, he knew, but the weight of anticipation was still heavy in his stomach.

“Guilty!” the Doctor repeated, all but crowing with triumph. “I couldn’t go along with what they’d written for me, I simply couldn’t but – it didn’t matter. They, ah -” His smile turned to something smaller, more self-satisfied. “They said my _candid manner was rather refreshing_.”

Jamie laughed, half at the pride on the Doctor’s face, half at the jubilation of it all. “So they said ye were rude.”

“I wasn’t rude!” the Doctor protested, but his indignation was belied by the chuckle that bubbled out of him. “I, ah, might have made a few comments about their laziness in not dealing with the problem sooner.”

“’Course ye did.” Jamie grinned down at the creature, ruffling its fur. “Isn’t the Doctor clever?”

“Oh!” The Doctor reached out hurriedly to take the creature from him, holding it at arm’s length to check it over. He simply raised his eyebrows at its blood-stained fur before cradling it properly. “Dear, me, you’ve had some adventures, haven’t you? And I was only gone a few minutes.”

“Wh – oh.” Jamie glanced down at the blood on his hands. “Aye, just a wee bit. We got along fine in the end, though, didn’t we?” he added, scratching at the ruff of fur around the creature’s face with one finger.

“Yes, I thought you might.” The Doctor leant in towards the creature, but kept his eyes fixed on Jamie. “Isn’t Jamie clever?”

“Daftie.” Jamie put his arm around the Doctor’s, holding the creature between them as he kissed his forehead. “I’m proud of ye.”

“Mmph.” Cheeks flushing orange, the Doctor glanced down at the creature. “These things aren’t nearly as easy to please as I made it sound, you know.”

Jamie grinned. “Aren’t they?”

“No.” The Doctor kissed his forehead in return. “I’m proud of you too, you know.”


	10. Family

“Doctor?” Jamie tore through the marketplace, staring around wildly. “Doctor!” The crowd he was forcing his way through blended together into a mass of people, and he doubted whether he would even have seen the Doctor if he had passed him – but the faster he ran, the more certain he was that the Doctor was not there. The feeling settled over him like chains, slowing his movement, making him heavy and clumsy. “ _Doctor_!”

Half the crowd was staring up at the tower, still smoking from the explosion moments before. The other half was crying, running, shouting out for lost loved ones – but for entirely different reasons to him. He skidded to a halt, bending over, gasping for breath, his throat hoarse from yelling.

“Jamie!” The sound of someone shouting his name made him whirl around, his whole body flooding with relief. Too late he realised that it had been Victoria’s voice, that it was Victoria shoving her way through the crowd towards him with a strength and determination that belied her small frame. Her ash-streaked face and wide eyes only served to twist the knife in further. “Jamie, I tried to stop him -”

“I knew it,” Jamie hissed. His worry was draining away, replaced by a surprisingly venomous anger. “He went up there, didn’t he?” He jerked his head towards the smoking remains of the tower. “That was him.”

Victoria nodded. “What happened?”

“He got some silly idea into his head – settin’ off the explosives an’ making it look like he was the one who put them up there. That way the chancellor wouldn’t be able to frame the prince for it.” Jamie shook his head, the last vestiges of his adrenaline-fuelled strength draining out of him. “It wasnae a good idea, I _told_ him -”

Victoria was still talking over him, her eyes glazed over with tears. “I should have stopped him.” Her voice trembled, almost breaking. “It’s my fault -”

“No, it’s not.” Jamie pulled her into a hug, and she fell silent at last, burying her face in his shoulder and leaving smudges of ash and tears on his shirt. “It’s no’ your fault. Ye know what he’s like when he gets an idea like that. I should’ve kept a better eye on him.” Victoria mumbled something into his shoulder. “Eh?”

“He’s in the West Gate Prison,” she repeated, pulling away from him. “I heard them saying they were taking him there, that’s -” She drew her hand over her blotchy cheeks, sniffling. “That’s why I came to find you. We could go there, break him out -”

“No.” Jamie held her out at arm’s length, hands on her shoulders, staring up at the tower as he mulled it over. His mind had looped around from panic to serene rationality, buoyed up by the knowledge that the Doctor was _somewhere_. He was findable. They would see him again – and soon, if he had anything to say about it. “No, we have tae find him first. If I know the Doctor, there’s somethin’ he’s not told us about this whole business.”

“Will they let us in?”

Jamie shrugged. “Only one way tae find out.”

Taking her hand, he led them through the crowds, bobbing under outstretched arms and weaving between huddled-together families clutching at each other. They were waiting for a second explosion, he realised, thinking they were under attack again. He wished desperately that he could tell them the truth – that it had been the chancellor, lying to them and keeping them afraid for all those years – but now was not the time. It was the Doctor who needed them.

They broke out of the square and started to run, hands still clutched together tightly, grinning despite themselves. Down a side street – through an alley, its edges crowded with rickety buildings – through a dark tunnel beneath a grand bridge, lit only by candles set into the crevices left by missing bricks – around the corner – and out onto another great square, this one cleaner and emptier, filled with well-dressed people going about their business in perfect calm. Glancing behind him, Jamie caught sight of the ruined tower rising above the spires of buildings that surrounded the square. Much of the smoke had cleared, revealing the gaps where the roof tiles had been blown off, but none of the people around them seemed to care.

_They know they’re safe_ , Jamie realised, fighting back the bitter taste of disgust. _They must know what the chancellor is doing_.

Tugging on his hand, Victoria nodded up towards the highest building at the very end of the square. Every inch of it was covered in gilding and carvings until it was almost disconcerting to look at – though perhaps that was the idea, Jamie thought. Through the confusion of its design, he caught sight of the great balcony – and on it, the chancellor, sipping from a glass and looking up at the tower. He was as careless as the people filling the square below him, entirely unruffled by his plan having been disrupted, as if he had expected this all along.

“Come on,” Victoria murmured, and only then did Jamie realise he had been glaring up at the building a little too openly. “The Doctor first. We’ll deal with him later.”

He let himself be led away from the square, ducking onto another street, wider and more ornate than the ones they had passed through earlier. Halfway along it sat the prison, as decorated as any of the buildings around it, and when Victoria pushed open the door, he almost held her back to tell her she had the wrong address. But the inside was stern and grey, the walls marred with patchy plasterwork where old decorations had been hastily removed. It was empty but for a guard, who turned to them with his lips pursed.

Victoria marched up to him, shoulders set, and drew herself up as tall as she could. “We’ve come to see the Doctor,” she said.

To Jamie’s surprise, the guard neither snapped nor laughed, but simply sighed, as if the whole town had been clamouring to see the Doctor, and he was getting to be tired of it. “I see,” he said. “Family, are you? Husband and daughter?”

The words sent a jolt through Jamie. It was just the shock of being referred to wrongly, he told himself sternly. It was certainly not that he was overly pleased to be mistaken for the Doctor’s husband. Nothing so silly as that. He opened his mouth to correct the guard, but Victoria cut across him smoothly. “That’s right,” she said, her face contorting into a perfect picture of heartbreak. “We wanted to see him before – before -”

The wobbling lip and teary eyes were a little melodramatic, Jamie thought, but it seemed to work alright. “Go on, then.” The guard shove a barred gate open, ushering them into the corridor beyond. “’Spose he’s entitled to a visit. But I wouldn’t get your hopes up about the trial. The evidence is overwhelming, you know.”

He wrenched open a door, all but pushed them inside, and slammed it shut behind them, leaving them standing there half-stunned. The room was a stark contrast to the bare corridor outside, as if someone had pulled everything out of the front part of the prison and forgotten to do the same for the rooms that had passed as cells. The Doctor had told them that this was the political prison, Jamie remembered, and he supposed a planet as peaceful as this had hardly needed one before the chancellor had started running things. The room was not as colourful as the rest of the city, but comfortable enough, with bookshelves and a fireplace – and an overstuffed bed, where the Doctor sat, hands clasped in his lap like a scolded child.

“Doctor!” Victoria exclaimed, rushing over to him with Jamie following close behind. “What on Earth did you do that for?”

Now he was closer to the Doctor, Jamie could see that his face was marred by a few scrapes, and that he was nursing a burn on one hand. “I had to,” he said softly. “The chancellor had to be stopped.”

“Aye, but what’s the good of ye endin’ up in here?” Jamie protested. “All ye did is delay it for a wee while. An’ -” He remembered the sight of the chancellor, sitting there as cool as anything. “I think the chancellor knew you’d do it, too. He didnae seem surprised or anythin’.” He knelt down in front of the Doctor, picking up his hand to turn it over and examine the burn. It was already healing, in that funny way the Doctor’s injuries always did, the skin almost visibly knitting back together, but he cradled the Doctor’s hand in his anyway. “It was all for nothin’.”

“Oh, you saw him, did you?” The Doctor pulled Victoria down so she sat beside him, still grasping at his shoulder. “Yes, I thought he might expect me to. But I doubt whether he expects me to have thought so.”

“Eh?”

“I want the court case to go ahead,” the Doctor pressed on. “I have enough evidence on him to lock him away ten times over – and half the rest of the aristocracy on this planet, for that matter. All I have to do now is show it in court.” He bit his lip, looking a little bashful. “But, ah – I may have forgotten the papers in the TARDIS. I had to hurry to get up to the tower in time, you see.”

“We can get them for you!” Victoria exclaimed. “If they let us into the prison again, we can smuggle them in.”

“ _Victoria_.” The Doctor shushed her hurriedly. “How _did_ you get in?”

Jamie opened his mouth, mind racing to think of some lie that would be less embarrassing than the truth, but Victoria was too quick for him again. “The guard thinks Jamie’s your husband,” she said, trying and failing to hide her smile. “And that I’m your daughter.”

“Oh!” The Doctor burst into laughter himself. “Oh, how charming. Don’t you think so, Jamie?”

“No, I don’t,” Jamie said firmly. “It’s not proper, no’ when – not when we’re no’ actually married.” The words tumbled out of him, as if he could stop Victoria and the Doctor laughing if he spoke fast enough. “An’ anyway, there’s more important things to think about.”

That sobered the two of them up, alright. The Doctor cleared his throat, shaking himself hastily. “Yes. Well. That means the two of you can get me the files I need from the TARDIS. But nobody must know you have them, you understand?” Jamie and Victoria nodded. “Now. Here’s what we’re going to do...”


	11. Seaside

The sun was beating down pleasantly over Jamie, warming him into a half-sleep. Distantly, he could hear the rhythmic crash of the waves on the shore, and he imagined them as the blue of the Earth’s seas, not the reddish seas of this planet. Rolling his shoulders, he stretched out and wondered what time it was, and whether the Doctor would be done swimming soon, and what was taking Zoe so long.

“ _Euch_.” He glanced up to see Zoe picking her way delicately across the beach, an ice cream cone clutched in each hand. “It’s dripping on me.”

“It’s melting.” Reaching up to take one of the ice creams, Jamie grinned at her. “Would’ve thought ye knew what melting was, with ye bein’ so smart, an’ all.”

The look she gave him was more scorching than the two suns overhead combined. “Of course I know what melting is,” she said primly. “I just don’t see why it has to melt on _me_. I’ll be sticky.”

Only as she settled herself onto the towel beside him did Jamie realise a few drops had spilled onto her jumpsuit, pink and green against the already rumpled white fabric. “What are ye wearin’ that for, anyway?” he asked. “You’re supposed tae wear – ye know. Beach clothes. When ye go to the beach.”

“I’m perfectly comfortable,” Zoe retorted, contorting her arm strangely to shake sand out of her sleeve. “It’s _practical_.”

“It’s no’.”

“It is unless you want -” She shuddered. “Grit all over you. And I wouldn’t go making judgements on other people’s fashion when you’re wearing...” Casting a critical eye over him, she raised her eyebrows pointedly, letting her expression finish the sentence. “I thought you didn’t wear trousers.”

“Hey!” Jamie exclaimed. “They’re no’ trousers. They’re swim shorts. I can’t exactly wear my kilt out tae go swimming, can I? It’d get too heavy.” He frowned when Zoe simply laughed at him. “What?”

“Oh, nothing.” She tilted her head back to catch the sun, still laughing. “Just that I’m being lectured on shorts by someone from the eighteenth century, that’s all.”

“Someone from the eighteenth century who’s been travellin’ a lot longer than ye have.”

“Yes, I suppose that’s true. Watch out, now, your ice cream’s dripping.”

Twisting his ice cream cone around, Jamie hurriedly licked the edges of it to catch the few stray rivulets running over the rim of the cone. It was an odd flavour – just a little too savoury to be strawberry – but it was nice enough, in the alien sort of way some things were. And besides, it was the idea of eating ice cream on the beach that seemed to be the important thing, rather than the taste. Either that, or the Doctor really did enjoy some of the truly awful flavours Jamie had seen him order over the years, and that prospect hardly bore thinking about.

As if on cue, the Doctor came ambling out of the sea and up the beach, rubbing his towel over his shoulders before flinging it down beside Jamie and flopping onto it. His arms and legs sent up a spray of sand as they hit the ground, dusting it over his still-damp skin and spraying it onto Jamie’s own towel. “Hello, Zoe,” he said cheerfully. “Jamie, I do hope you remembered to put on another coat of sunscreen.”

“Aye, ‘course.”

The Doctor’s eyes lit up as he took in the ice creams in Jamie and Zoe’s hands. “Where’s mine?”

“You were swimming,” Zoe pointed out. “And I could only carry two. I got the money from your pockets, though, I do hope you don’t mind.” She wrinkled her nose. “I had to get the person at the shop to tell me what was the right currency. I don’t know how you manage it.”

“Ah – practice, mostly.” The Doctor lay back on his towel, working his toes into the sand idly. “How are you finding your first beach, Zoe?”

Zoe did not immediately answer, and Jamie watched her curiously, taking in the way her eyes tracked a seabird flinging itself across the sky, the rolling motion of the waves, a family wandering across the beach before them. “I do appreciate landing somewhere peaceful for once,” she said at last. “But it’s so – messy. Everyone always seems so keen on beaches, wherever we go, but they really aren’t very comfortable.” She shrugged, throwing them an apologetic smile. “I suppose I’m a little underwhelmed.”

It was such a Zoe answer, to complain about the practicality of beaches, that Jamie thought he would suffocate trying to suppress his laughter. He did not dare look over at the Doctor, but the strained note in his voice told him that he was faring no better. “What’s uncomfortable about them?”

“Well, it’s the sun, isn’t it?” Zoe spoke slowly, patiently, in the same tone she used when telling Jamie about scientific principles she thought were obvious. “It’s so bright. And it’s windy, and noisy, and the sand sticks to you. I don’t know what you two see in it. There’s a perfectly good arcade over there -” she nodded towards the great stone pier on the other side of the bay - “and I don’t see why you said you’d have more fun here. I’m sure the machine would be easy enough to rig into giving us the prizes.”

“Zoe -” The Doctor sighed, his face full of gentle disappointment. “You can’t just rig the machines at an arcade. That would be cheating. It – it takes all the _fun_ out of the exercise.”

“This from the person who sulked until I reverse-engineered a claw machine for him two weeks ago.”

“That was different!” the Doctor exclaimed, his voice full of indignation but his cheeks full of colour. “That machine was already rigged _against_ us. It was entirely fair to rig it _for_ us in return.”

Zoe simply raised her eyebrows at him before turning to Jamie. “What do _you_ see in the beach?” Her eyes flicked to the umbrella angled over his head. “You don’t seem to be seeing very much of it.”

“I like gettin’ to dump him in the water, mostly,” Jamie said, grinning and jerking his head towards the Doctor, who screwed up his face at him in return. “But it’s just – nice, ye know. Ye just get tae lie around, an’ there’s a nice view, an’ other people havin’ fun. It’s just peaceful.”

The doubt written on Zoe’s face told him that she would much rather have fun inside, thank you very much. But she turned to the Doctor anyway, looking at him expectantly. “Doctor?”

“Oh, ah -” Pulling his hand out of his coat pocket hastily, the Doctor turned back to them. “Well – I suppose it is messy, yes. But _life_ is messy, you know, Zoe. It’s not always entirely comfortable, but it wouldn’t be any fun if it was. And Jamie’s quite right, you know, there’s other people enjoying themselves, and generally there’s a rather lovely view. So I’d say -” He faltered under Zoe’s sceptical gaze. “I’d say going to the beach is a rather charming microcosm, you know.”

Grinning, Jamie leant over to wards Zoe. “He didnae really bring ye here tae teach ye a lesson, ye know. He just likes swimmin’ in the ocean.”

“I can hear you, you know,” the Doctor said mildly. He had succeeded in pulling a few scattered coins out of his pockets, and went to set his coat aside before picking it back up again to take out something brightly-coloured. “Now, Zoe – how about that ice cream?”

“Let me finish mine first,” Zoe protested. “What have you got there, anyway?”

“Oh, ah -” The Doctor held up a small plastic spade. “Anyone for sand castles?”

Zoe wrinkled her nose. “On second thoughts, I think I’ll go and get that ice cream.” She reached over to take the coins from the Doctor’s hand, but looked up at him exasperatedly. “Doctor – none of these are the right currency.”

“Practice, eh?” Jamie put in, grinning.

The Doctor huffed at their laughter, swiping the coins out of Zoe’s hand and shoving them back into his pockets. “Hush, you two.”


	12. Gift

“Ah, Jamie...” The Doctor trotted along behind him, tapping his fingers together tentatively. “You’re putting rather a lot of effort into this, aren’t you?”

Striding past a few cases, Jamie stopped so suddenly that the Doctor bumped into his back. He turned on his heel to peer inside, tilting his head back and forth to admire the shine on the necklaces strung up inside. They were silver, delicately engraved, curled into the knotted designs that the Doctor had said were popular on this planet. “What do ye think?”

“Mm.” The Doctor leant forward to examine them. “Well, they’re lovely. I never thought you were one for jewellery, Jamie.”

_The problem is that_ you’re _not one for jewellery_ , Jamie thought despairingly. As if shopping for the Doctor was not hard enough already – what could he get someone whose ship already gave him everything he needed? – he could not even tell him what he was doing. “I’m no’,” he said vaguely, already drifting off towards the next cabinet. “I just think they look nice, that’s all.”

The Doctor held out his hand. “In that case, I’ll be taking back that ring.”

Sticking his tongue out of him, Jamie tucked the chain holding his wedding ring inside his shirt pointedly. “It’s mine now, I’m no’ givin’ it back.”

“Well, you’d be getting a little crowded with both of them,” the Doctor pointed out.

“’Spose so.” Shrugging, Jamie wandered away from the jewellery shop. It was not as if the necklace would be _for_ him, of course – but surely if he carried on looking at them, the Doctor would ask questions. He turned away from the shops lining the walls of the great hallway, instead meandering through the cluster of shops that filled the centre. A few salespeople called out to him, some rattling their wares temptingly, but he smiled and shook his head at all of them. Nothing felt quite _right_. The Doctor certainly appreciated a novelty mug or two – but he had so many already, and somehow giving him another felt a little impersonal. A board game was not quite intimate enough – books were too confusing to pick out, and besides, the TARDIS library was so huge that he would surely already have a dozen first-edition copies of anything that might be on sale here – and a new coat was entirely out of the question.

“Maybe if you told me what you were looking for,” the Doctor put in after a while, “I might be able to help.” He was the only person who knew the answer, Jamie thought with a touch of irony, but he could hardly go asking the Doctor what he would like for his own surprise present. “I, ah – I know you wanted to get something for Ben and Polly – but it’s unlike you to get so caught up in buying something for yourself, Jamie.”

There was a sort of gentle, prodding concern in his voice, and Jamie could hardly blame him for it. He had been particularly unsubtle over the past few days, he knew, what with insisting that they stop off at some sort of market before going to see Ben and Polly, and now dragging the Doctor up and down the biggest shopping centre he had ever seen. “I just wanted somethin’, that’s all,” he said, trying to sound as mild and innocent as he possibly could. “What about these?”

The Doctor picked up one of the puzzle boxes he had gestured towards. “Well, they’re rather pretty,” he mumbled, already poking at it. Before Jamie could fully register what had happened, he had pushed a button, slid a panel over, tapped the sides, and popped a compartment out of the bottom. A golden bauble tipped into his hand, and he fumbled with it in surprise before shoving it back inside. “Ah. _Ahem_.” Glancing around himself awkwardly, he put the box back on the shelf. “A little easy, perhaps.”

_Not those, then_. Huffing, Jamie wove his way back out of the stalls. Perhaps he could tell Ben and Polly about his problem, and they would take him out shopping in London. Polly would know just what to do, he was sure, and they could help him keep the Doctor safely distracted while he searched. But today was the day, by his reckoning, and – he glanced up dourly at the reddening sky – there was hardly any of it left.

“I don’t know what to get,” he said at last. “Nothing seems right.”

“You don’t _have_ to buy anything, you know,” the Doctor said, patting his back. “We don’t usually take souvenirs of the places we’ve been.”

Jamie snorted. “I’ve seen that room in the TARDIS where ye keep all your old stuff. That bell from Tibet was in there, remember?”

“Well – all those things were acquired in exceptional circumstances.”

“Aye, I know. Ye just so happen tae run into a lot of exceptional circumstances.” Jamie sat down heavily on a nearby bench, leaning against the back of it with a sigh. “Doesnae mean I’m not disappointed, ye know.”

“Of course.”

Listlessly, Jamie scanned the shops in front of them. Two of them were entirely useless – appliances and mattresses, the sort of thing that would have the Doctor yawning and complaining that the TARDIS could make those things up herself. The third was perhaps more promising, full of alien gadgets that whizzed and spun and let out odd purple lights, but he knew he would have no idea where to start.

Something on a high shelf at the back of the fourth shop caught his eye.

It was crammed with old Earth antiques, with a few more alien-looking pieces thrown in for good measure. The warm wood panels of the walls and doors almost seemed to draw him in, and he stood up slowly, holding his palms out towards the Doctor as if to press him into his seat. “Wait here,” he said, never taking his eyes off that high shelf. “I’ll be back in a moment.”

“Alright.” The Doctor was watching him with an expression that was half-amused, half-concerned. “Do you have enough credits?”

“Aye, I’ve got enough.” Jamie made his way into the shop slowly, as if in a trance, but broke into a half-jog as soon as he crossed the threshold. He wove his way through the piles of items, doubling back on himself two or three times, and once finding himself so turned around that he was back at the door. Finally reaching the shelf he wanted, he leant against it heavily for a moment, breathless with excitement. Reaching up, he felt the familiar coarseness of wool under his hands, and pulled it down to press it against his chest. He did not know whether it was reality or imagination, but when he closed his eyes, it almost smelt like home. He carried it delicately to the counter, heart pounding, as tentative as if it would come apart beneath his touch. The shopkeeper took his credits with one purple tentacle, punching at the keys of their rusted cash register in silence, but he was too smitten with his purchase to care.

Dashing out of the shop the moment his receipt was handed over, he skidded to a halt in front of the Doctor, holding his new treasure behind his back in its crinkled paper bag. “It’s been five years,” he said. “Five years since we met.”

“Oh!” The Doctor looked up at him in surprise, a smile dawning across his face. “Oh, has it really?”

“Aye. An’ - well, it’s been – och, ye know what I’m goin’ tae say. Ye know I’ve loved it. An’ ye said, then, ye said ye wanted one of these, so -” He held out he bag. “Happy anniversary?”

The Doctor took the bag, pulled out the blue bonnet inside, and beamed.


	13. Escape

“Just a little bit -” The Doctor scrabbled for a better grip on the rock face, his breathing audibly heavy even from where Jamie was clinging on below him. “Further.” He kicked out as he took another step upwards, his heel narrowly missing Jamie’s hand. “I can see the top from here.”

“I hope you’re right,” Jamie called up to him. “You’ve said that three times already.” His fingers were all but frozen to the crevices he had dug them into. The cliff had sapped the heat from them so thoroughly that even the few patches of dirt and scraggly plants that had forced their way into the cracks seemed warm. He paused to catch his breath, pressing his forehead against the rock and closing his eyes, then forced himself up after the Doctor. “Is it really the top this time?”

The biting wind must have carried his voice away, because the Doctor did not reply, but the sight of him scrambling over some sort of edge and out of view was good enough for Jamie. Whether it really was the top of the cliff or just another place for them to sit and rest, he did not care. Anything would be better than this, stuck between slick, cold rock and empty air. Perhaps it would be a cave, he thought, with enough dry brush for them to make a fire. He knew he ought to be looking forward to the top, and the shore, and the boat waiting for them there. But the long trip back across the sea would surely be just as cold, with nothing but a spray-dampened blanket to warm him – and after their narrow escape, the thought of a fire or even just somewhere solid and still to pass the night sounded better than anything.

He hauled himself over the edge, the Doctor reaching out to grab his arm and drag him up the last few centimetres. The realisation that they had in fact reached the top caught him in a great wave of exhaustion, with a touch of disappointment thrown in for good measure. He had been hopeful that there would be a fire, after all. But the Doctor checked him over with impossibly steady hands, pressing his thumb against the scratches and scrapes that marred Jamie’s knees and palms, then set off down the gravelly beach until he had been swallowed by the thick darkness.

Jamie lay there for a long, aching minute until the pounding of his heart had – not stopped, exactly, but settled back down to a normal enough volume. He pushed himself up, first onto his hands and knees, then into a squat when the bite of the shells and stones stung his skin. The Doctor was still nowhere to be seen or heard, and there was no orange light bobbing cheerily on the inky-black ocean. He blinked – swallowed – blinked again – and turned the thought over in his tired mind.

No light.

No light meant no boat.

No boat meant being stuck there, exposed on the beach, until they found some other way back – or until they were found by someone less friendly.

The burst of panic that came with that thought made him spring up, scrambling down the beach after the Doctor. He cast around for him desperately, jogging this way and that before eventually colliding with something solid. The impact was too much for his still-unsteady legs, and he sprawled onto the ground again, hissing as the hand he stretched out to break his fall hit something sharp.

Someone was grasping his arms, holding him steady, their eyes flashing red in the dark. Leaning forward, he pressed one hand to his chest in relief as his eyes started to adjust. “Doctor?”

“I assume you’ve realised what’s happened.” He did not have to see the Doctor’s face to know the put-out grimace on it.

“I think so.” Jamie glanced around again, hoping the light might have appeared while he had been distracted. “Ye can see better in the dark, I was thinkin’ - ye know, maybe ye could see the boat out there. That the light had just gone out, or somethin’.”

“Ah – well, I _can_ see it. The light’s gone out, and it’s further away than it should be, but it’s out there.”

“Ye can?” Jamie stared out into the darkness, straining to catch a glimpse of it himself as his eyes adjusted. “So where is it?”

‘About twenty metres away from shore.” The Doctor spoke mildly, as if the boat drifting away was the least of their worries, and as if twenty metres was an entirely reasonable distance or it to have wandered. “Not too far, I’d think. But I do wonder if it may have – ah – _broken its moorings_ , shall we say, some time before we arrived. We’re rather lucky the currents haven’t carried it away.”

“How would it do that?” Even as he spoke, Jamie snapped his fingers in realisation. “Ye don’t think -”

“That someone from the company did it?” Moving his hands up to the Doctor’s shoulders, Jamie felt him shrug. “It could be. But I’d rather not wait around here until morning to find out.”

“What are we gonnae do?”

“Well, there’s only one thing we can do. Swim out to it, of course.”

“No.” Jamie stared at the Doctor, searching for some hint of humour on his expression. His heart sank when he found none. “No way. It’s too far.”

“It’s only twenty metres -”

“It’s dark.”

“I’ll hold onto you, I won’t let you get lost -”

“I can’t swim.”

“Oh.” The Doctor was quiet for a long time. “Oh,” he said again, more faintly.

He had not seen that coming, Jamie thought. “ _Oh_ ,” he repeated, with a sort of bitter satisfaction.

“Well, then.”

“Aye.”

“That makes things rather more difficult, doesn’t it?”

“Aye, I’d say it does.” Jamie flopped back down onto the beach, sprawling out and sighing. Beside him, he heard shells crunching as the Doctor joined him. A part of him – the part that was trembling and screeching at the thought of having to swim so far – was urging him to take the Doctor’s hand and clutch it as tightly as he could, but he quashed it hurriedly. “Couldn’t ye swim to it, an’ bring it in that way?”

“I’m afraid not,” the Doctor said. “It’s far too heavy for me to pull it in unpowered, and that engine takes two to run.”

“Won’t the tides change?”

“This isn’t a tidal sea.”

Jamie could have screamed with frustration. As it was, he settled for flinging a stone a little way down the beach. It fell into the shallows with a splash, and he shuddered, thinking of how icy the waters must be – of what would happen to the Doctor, if they truly did have no choice but to swim out to the boat. “This is all my fault,” he mumbled.

Even through the darkness, he could feel the Doctor staring at him. “How on Earth could this be your fault?”

“I kept puttin’ off learnin’ tae swim, ‘cause -” He turned his face away, like it would make any difference. The Doctor could still see him, and he could not see the Doctor nearly so well. “If ye must know, it’s a wee bit – scary. An’ now we have tae swim, we really need to, but I can’t.”

“ _Jamie_.” The firmness in the Doctor’s voice made him startle, sitting up straight as if called to attention. “Unless you didn’t tie the ropes tight enough – or cut the moorings yourself, which I _highly_ doubt – this is in no way your fault. This is just – a piece of bad luck, that’s all. Now, the ocean is rather cold tonight, so I expect you’ll want to take off that jacket and try to keep it as dry as possible, so you’ll have something warm to wear when we reach the boat -”

“ _Doctor_.” Giving in the urge, Jamie reached over to take his hand. It was just to get his attention, he told himself. Just to press his hand gently into the gravel until he fell quiet. Lacing their fingers together had been entirely accidental. “I cannae swim, remember?”

“Yes, yes, I’m quite aware of that. You did just point it out a few minutes ago, remember?” The Doctor squeezed his hand in return, electrifying every nerve in Jamie’s body with that one casual motion. “We’ll just have to teach you.” He laughed, though not unkindly. “I can see your mouth hanging open, you know.”

Shutting his mouth with a snap, Jamie’s cheeks flooded with heat. He had gone and forgotten how well the Doctor could see again, and if he had seen him gaping – well, he had surely seen how stricken he had been as he took his hand, he thought with despair. “I cannae learn now,” he protested, struggling to drag his mind back to the problem at hand. “There’s no’ enough time.”

The Doctor squeezed his hand again, then laughed, far too soon after Jamie’s whimper of fresh embarrassment to be altogether clueless of what he was doing. “Well, you would have had to learn sooner or later, wouldn’t you?”


	14. Love

The landing hall was packed with people, the walls pressing in around them until the place felt shrunken and airless. Only yesterday it had been indescribably huge, the marble floors and carved stone ceiling cold and unfriendly, but now Jamie was burning with anticipation and nervousness, shifting his weight from side to side impatiently, and he had no heart to admire the architecture. He had waited seven days, but the last few minutes were somehow the worst of it all. Glancing around, he saw his agitation reflected in the faces of the people around him, saw it in children bouncing up and down and tugging on adults’ clothes, in the clenched fists of brothers and sisters and husbands and mothers, in the flower wreaths and baskets of fruit carried by some.

But it was not quite the same, he reminded himself. It might have been – would have been, even – but he had just had to go and do something _stupid_.

It had seemed so simple – to shout out _I love you_ , just as the Doctor boarded the rocket, just as it was too late for him to reply. A cowardly move, perhaps. But it had been said, and that was all that mattered. At least, he had thought so at the time, before the nail-biting anxiety of waiting set in. It had been seven days of torture, not knowing what the Doctor had thought, or if he would even speak to him when he returned.

_If he leaves me behind, this wouldn’t be such a bad place to stay_ , he had told himself firmly.

_Ben and Polly wouldn’t let him do that_ , he had thought.

_He wouldn’t do that._

_Would they?_

_Would he?_

A great rumbling shook the floor of the hall, shaking the gilded chandelier that hung above them. The people around him clutched at each other, some shushing children that had begun to wail. He stood amongst it all in silence, rooted to the spot, then began to push himself to the front of the crowd, as determined as if he were possessed. The Doctor would almost certainly be the first one out, the hero of the hour, as keen to soak up the attention as he was to deny that he enjoyed it. He could hear the shouts of the landing-stage staff beyond the door, hear the crash of the rocket landing and the clunk of its sides opening, the chatter of voices – his heart was pounding so hard that he thought it would surely give out before he even saw the Doctor -

The first cluster of people burst through the door, and the crowd around him erupted into cheers, but Jamie could only stare at them blankly. All five of them were complete strangers to him. The Doctor was not there.

Another group came into the hall after them, young men who were immediately descended upon by a gaggle of older women, embracing them and placing flower crowns on their heads. They beamed out at the rest of the hall, raising their arms in triumph. Each of them bore neatly patched-up scratches and scrapes, and one or two moved gingerly, betraying worse injuries.

More and more people were pouring in from the rocket now, and Jamie’s blood ran cold. He should have insisted that he go with the Doctor. There had been nobody to look after him, to stop him from doing something dangerous. On any other day he would have fought the issue right up until the Doctor stepped on board, and after that too – but he had gotten that idea into his head, to tell the Doctor he loved him. And now the Doctor was nowhere to be seen.

The hall was beginning to empty, families clutching at each other as they headed outside and home again. Jamie watched each of them go, but he could never tear his eyes away from the new arrivals for long, his heart leaping every time the door was pushed open. The happy chatter of reunited people around him was drowned out by the rushing sound that filled his ears. _The Doctor must be somewhere_ , he thought. _They would tell us if something terrible had happened. Someone would have said something._

_Wouldn’t they?_

Maybe he had brought it upon himself, a nasty little voice deep inside him was saying. Just by speaking the words he had told himself he would never say. How could he have been so selfish? Could he not have kept it to himself, contented himself with the Doctor’s friendship, not been so bold as to ask for more? Could he not have just accepted that he would have to live with his longing, rather than trying to get something he did not deserve?

Distantly, he was aware that his legs had begun to shake, weakened by the adrenaline draining out of his system. He sunk to his knees, eyes glazed over, though whether with disbelief or tears he did not know. The opening and closing of the door had faded into white noise, the people around him little more than faceless clusters. All he knew was that none of them were the Doctor. Nobody was coming to forgive him for what he had said.

The door was pushed open again, and two men hobbled through, one leaning heavily on the other. Jamie glanced up briefly, saw that the stronger of the two was a stranger, and looked away – then slowly raised his head again. The person leaning on him was the Doctor, hunched over and looking so small and tired that he almost vanished into his coat. Jamie all but leapt to his feet, rushing over to stop just short of the pair.

“What happened?” he demanded. “What’s wrong with him?”

“Jamie.” The Doctor’s voice was faint, but he still managed a weak smile. The fond rebuke in his tone should have settled Jamie’s nerves, but it only made him antsier, rocking back and forth on his heels. “I’m quite alright.”

“You’re not alright.” The Doctor stumbled, and Jamie reached out to him instinctively. “What’ve ye gone and done to yourself?”

The other man had stepped back to let Jamie take the Doctor’s weight, half-turned away from them. “He had to plug himself into the Xenii mainframe,” he put in. “We only just managed to get him off their ship before it blew up, and...” He swallowed. “It took its toll on him.”

“Will he be alright?” The other man glanced down at his feet instead of replying. “Well, will he be?”

“I’ll be fine.” The Doctor raised one hand to pat Jamie’s arm, but erupted into a bout of coughing. “Don’t worry about me,” he added, altogether too hoarsely to be believable. “I just need time, that’s all.”

“You’re gonnae _rest_.” Wrapping the Doctor’s arm around his shoulders, Jamie took him by the waist and guided him into taking a small step across the hall. “Ben an’ Polly are at the control station, we’ll – we’ll find them an’ get ye some help.”

“No need,” the Doctor was saying, but Jamie only gripped him more determinedly. “Ah – not so tight, Jamie.”

“Oh.” Cheeks prickling, Jamie loosened his hold. “Sorry.” He nodded to the other man as they passed him, mouth pressed into a poor semblance of a smile. “But we’re gonnae look after ye, alright? An’ then, maybe -” Embarrassment flooded over him once again. In the panic of seeing the Doctor so hurt, he had entirely forgotten why he had been waiting with such nervousness. “Maybe we can talk.”

“We can talk now,” the Doctor protested.

“You’re in no fit state,” Jamie insisted. “An’ neither am I, tae be honest with ye.”

“I love you too.”

“An’ I don’t think – what?”

“I love you too.” The Doctor had pulled him to a halt, holding him still to meet his eyes.

Surely he couldn’t mean it, Jamie thought. Not like that. It couldn’t be so simple. “You’re a wee bit confused,” he said faintly. “Pluggin’ yourself intae that thing, it – it just mixed ye up a bit, that’s all – ye don’t _mean_ it, not how I mean it -”

The Doctor laughed incredulously. “I can assure you, I’ve never been clearer about anything. And I most certainly do mean it how you did. That is, unless -” He twisted himself from side to side, pulling at his hands. “That is, unless _you_ don’t mean it how _I_ mean it.”

For all his disbelief, a smile was spreading uncontrollably across Jamie’s face. “Ye really, really mean it?”

“I really, really, do.” The Doctor was beaming too now. “Oh, Jamie...” He raised one hand, cupping Jamie’s cheek, and Jamie leant into it, closing his eyes. “ _Never_ do that again. Seven days was too long to wait to say it back.”

Despite himself, Jamie laughed too. “Don’t worry, I won’t.” Now he had started laughing, he found he could not stop. Something giddy had taken root in his chest, and he knew it would take more strength than he had to uproot it. What was more, he found that he did not want to. The Doctor loved him. And he loved the Doctor, too. “Seven days was a long time tae wait to find out if you’d say it back.”

“Of course I would.” The Doctor bit his lip. “You are quite sure, aren’t you, that you – ah – that you mean it – like that?”

The idea of saying it aloud – _yes, I’m in love with you, I have been for ages now_ – was just a little too much, Jamie thought. His heart surely couldn’t take much more, what wih the waiting and the worrying about the Doctor and now the absolute elation that filled him up to press against his ribs. Instead he leant in and kissed the Doctor, clumsy and tentative, nose bumping against the bandage that covered the graze on his cheek. The Doctor’s hand moved from his own cheek to the back of his head, fingers tangling in the hair at the nape of his neck, and when he pulled away he kept them close, foreheads pressed together.

“I think I meant it like that,” he said quietly, and the Doctor broke into a laughter that was almost as hysterical as Jamie felt, clutching at his side and wheezing in between coughs and splutters.

“You’re going to do me an injury, Jamie McCrimmon,” was all he said, still laughing.

“I hope not.” Taking hold of him again, Jamie set off towards the door. “But it’s a good thing you’ve got me tae patch ye up again.”


	15. Warm

The Doctor pushed the door open slowly, peering into the darkened staff room. It was deserted, the staff themselves being busy in the kitchen or serving the party guests, too rushed to take a break – deserted, that was, but for a solitary figure standing against the window.

“Jamie?” he said softly, stepping inside and closing the door behind him with a click. He would be missed before long, he knew – and if anyone had seen him sneaking into the staff area, the game would be up. No real invitee to the Qomii king’s birthday celebrations would do such a thing, even if they claimed to be an off-worlder diplomat. But he could hardly have left Jamie on his own, not when he had been looking so pained. “Are you alright?”

“Aye, aye, I’m fine.” Jamie did not look away from the window. He was hugging himself, fingers gripping his arms tight enough to wrinkle the crisp fabric of his shirt, and he tightened his grip a little as he spoke. “It’s just a wee bit cold on the terrace, ye know. I came in here tae warm up.”

The Doctor laughed, taking Jamie’s reply as permission to wander over to him. “Jamie McCrimmon, complaining about the cold?” he said when they stood side-by-side. “I never thought I’d see the day.”

“Don’t ye go tellin’ Victoria, mind,” Jamie said, wagging one finger warningly. “I’ll no’ have her thinking I can get cold.” He glanced towards the door. “Will she be alright on her own?”

“Oh, she seemed to be getting along perfectly fine. Better than we were. She’s – well, she’s in her element, you know.” Jamie nodded, his mouth set into something that might have been disapproval. “It isn’t really the cold, is it? It’s plenty warm enough in the ballroom. There was no need to risk coming in here.”

Jamie sighed. “Aye, alright.” He turned to press one hand onto the Doctor’s shoulder, slouching to rest his weight on it. “I’m sick of dealin’ with these people, that’s all. I dinnae see how ye can be so – so _nice_ tae them, when ye know what they’re like, an’ what we’re going tae do.”

He had a point, the Doctor supposed. There was more than a little cognitive dissonance between cordial socialisation tonight and trying to topple the monarchy tomorrow. But it was for the best, he reminded himself quickly. They had to wheedle their way into the good graces of high society to be allowed into the palace, or the plan would all fall apart. And it would be worth it in the end, to see the end of a corrupt rule and help bring about an age of prosperity.

Or so he hoped, anyway.

“I suppose I have a knack for it,” he said. A habit learnt over the centuries, honed and refined since his wild days at the Academy – but he could hardly tell Jamie that, or he would start asking questions. “One learns to put personal feelings aside in these cases, you know.”

“ _Oh_ , aye.” Jamie was smirking at him, and he winced, knowing exactly what would come next. “And last week, when ye tipped that ambassador’s soup into his lap, that was puttin’ personal feelings aside, was it?”

So much for his honed and refined habits, then. He met Jamie’s poorly-muffled laughter with a scowl. “It most certainly was. By all objective measures, he deserved it.”

“Did he, now?”

“He said you were -” He dropped his voice, as if parroting something coarse. “He said you were uneducated. And _common_.”

Jamie shrugged. “I’ve been called worse. I can live with it. But I cannae live with that lot up there – stuffin’ themselves with wee cakes an’ talkin’ about how much money they’re making by putting people down the mines.”

“Mm.” The Doctor tapped his fingers against the window. The view of the horizon from the palace had been carefully, even artfully sculpted from all angles to hide any indication of life outside. But now, in the half-dark, he could see the tell-tale glow of a mine-tower chimney through the treetops. “I like that about you, you know. You’re always honest about what you think, and you’re not afraid to act on it.”

Jamie turned his face away, but the redness of his cheek was still as clear as anything. “It’s nothin’ special,” he protested. “An’ it’s no’ always a good thing. I used tae get in trouble for poaching fish from the river, back home.”

The Doctor burst into laughter, oddly charmed by the revelation. “You poached fish?”

“Aye, all the time.” Jamie shrugged as if to say _hasn’t everyone_ , but the corners of his mouth were twitching. “My father didnae like me doin’ it. He was the one who got me in trouble. So I learnt tae just tell my mother about it.”

“You’re -” The Doctor shook his head, bumping Jamie’s arm to get his attention and smile at him. “You’re full of surprises, you know.”

Jamie laughed at that, giving in to the pride that quickly spread across his face. “I should’ve known you’d like the idea of it.”

“Oh, I do. But wouldn’t the laird have minded? When we first met, you seemed – well, rather loyal to him, I thought.”

‘Aye, he would’ve minded. An’ he was a good laird – a sight better than some I knew of. So maybe I’d have felt a wee bit bad about it, if they were his fish.”

“Ah.”

“I only ever took from the merchants, see. Comin’ onto our river an’ actin’ like they owned everythin’ in it.” Jamie jerked his head towards the door, and the Doctor knew he meant for the motion to reach beyond it, to the people in the hall and on the terrace. “Bit like them. Lordin’ it over the rest of us, an’ taking what they can. Doesnae matter if they’re Highland men, or English, or – whatever these people are.”

“ _Ghylian_ is the adjectival term, I believe.” It was warmer in here, the Doctor mused. And the party was getting more than a little tiresome. Perhaps Jamie had the right idea, and it would be better to wait in the staff room until it was all over. Victoria would be doing perfectly well for herself – enjoying herself, if he knew her – and her influence might just be enough to get them inside tomorrow.

But then again, he thought, there was always the chance that she wasn’t doing perfectly well for herself. And if that were the case, and he had decided that it was too much trouble to join in, he would never forgive himself.

“We should at least stay until dinner,” he said at last.

If human ears could perk up, Jamie’s would have at that. “There’s dinner?”

“Four courses, I believe.” The Doctor tilted his head up, staring out at the double moons that were just visible through the trees. If he looked at Jamie directly, he knew he would start laughing again, and that would hardly do for his presentable image. “It would be a sort of poaching, wouldn’t it, to stay for dinner? Seeing as we’re not invited.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that Jamie was smirking along with him. “Aye, it would be.”

“So perhaps we should give it a chance. Even if we don’t enjoy putting on the act for it. Do you think you can manage?”

“Aye, I think I can manage it. Just for four courses, mind.”

“Splendid.” The Doctor held his elbow out, and Jamie hooked his hand through it, letting himself be led towards the door. “Time for you to show me these poaching talents of yours, _Mister McCrimmon_.”

“Certainly, _Doctor McCrimmon_.” Jamie pushed the door open, holding it out for the Doctor to step through. “Back out intae the cold, then.”


	16. Fairy

“I’m not quite sure -” The Doctor stopped, leaning over with his hands on his knees, breathing hard. “What you think you’ll accomplish here, Jamie.”

“I want tae see the faery well,” Jamie said flatly. “Come on, ye have us runnin’ from beasties all over the place an’ ye cannae even climb a wee hill?”

The look the Doctor gave him was witheringly doubtful, and he laughed. “I dare say I’m a sprinter. Anyway, it’s not such a little hill.”

It was true, as much as it pained Jamie to back down from the banter. Glancing behind them, he looked down over the forest stretched out below. The bare trunks that surrounded them slowly receded behind the slope, vanishing amongst the tops of the trees further down the hill. Across the valley below, the city they had walked up from was tucked amongst the leaves, even its great, bulbous buildings seeming small from their height and distance.

“Alright, then. Not such a little hill.” He tucked the Doctor’s arm into his, pulling him onwards. “But I meant what I said. We’ve had worse than this.”

“Alright, then,” the Doctor repeated back to him, smiling. “And it has been a rather pleasant walk. I’m just not so sure about your chances of finding anything.”

“It’s no’ about _finding_ something,” Jamie said. “Just about goin’ to the place.” The Doctor gave a little non-committal mumble that fell just short of sounding like agreement. “Ye don’t get it.”

“I do,” the Doctor insisted hastily. “But do you really think there’s a – a -” He sighed. “Well, it’s not exactly a faery, is it? This isn’t Earth.”

“No, it’s not. But it’s close enough.”

“But do you really think there’s something up there?”

Jamie shrugged. “Nila said there was. Why should I doubt her?”

The Doctor fell silent, blinking at him. “But there’s no _proof_ ,” he said at last, as painfully plaintive as if Jamie had insulted him.

Jamie blinked back at him. “Does there have tae be?”

“Well -” The Doctor wavered from side to side as he walked, tapping his hands together. “I understand that you believe in these things, Jamie, but I simply -”

“Think I’m wrong?”

“ _Can’t_ ,” the Doctor said firmly. “It isn’t that I don’t believe you. Oh – well – I don’t believe in it – you know what I mean,” he finished awkwardly, flapping his hands as if they could end the sentence for him. “Cultural context, and all that. We see things differently.”

“Oh, aye.” Jamie hooked his fingers through his belt, mulling it over. “So last week – with the Cybermen -”

“When you thought the Cyberman was the phantom piper, yes.”

Nudging at the Doctor’s side, Jamie stuck his tongue out at him. The Doctor pulled a face in return, and they grinned at each other for a moment longer, frustration smoothed out by silliness. “Och, I know it wasn’t that, now. An’ I wasnae exactly thinking straight then, so I wasnae thinking of that. No, I meant – when Polly came up with sprayin’ them. I’d said about holy water, an’ she said -”

“Ah! Yes, I see.” The Doctor nodded. “That’s what I mean, we – we think of things differently, because we come from different places.” He paused, sighing to himself, almost deflating. “But – that isn’t quite it, either, is it? It isn’t like you think Nila’s people are faeries because they can do things that people in your time couldn’t imagine. _That_ would be cultural context. But you’ve never even seen this place. There’s nothing for you to need a – a folklore, or a mythology, to explain.”

Jamie watched him finish rambling with a touch of amusement. “Are ye done tryin’ tae analyse me?” If he had learnt anything from travelling with the Doctor these past two weeks, he thought, it was that he was an odd creature. Clever – too clever for his own good sometimes – but somehow with a knack for missing the obvious. “I’m just interested, that’s all. Why shouldn’t I believe Nila that there’s a faery up there? You’ve trusted her with most other things, here.”

The Doctor stared back at him in disbelief. “Because there isn’t any proof!”

“I didnae see any proof that the sun made those big wheels go round, but ye believed that, alright.”

“But that’s _different_.”

“Alright, alright.” Jamie held his hands out, as if to placate the Doctor. “So ye say ye need proof tae say there is somethin’ up there. But can ye prove there’s not a faery?” He felt a rush of satisfaction when the Doctor spluttered and floundered, but no coherent words emerged from him. “An’ if ye _really_ want to know, I’m walkin’ up here ‘cause it reminds me of a place I used tae visit.”

“Oh?” The Doctor perked up at that. “What sort of place?”

“They used tae call it _Càrn Mòr_. Full of trees, but ye could see these big ditches an’ things – an’ bits an’ pieces of a wall runnin’ round it, like.” He traced out a circle in the air. “Dunno if it was a faery or a giant or a man who lived there, but it was there, alright. No’ natural. I used tae walk to it, sometimes. Took a few hours there an’ back, but it was worth it, tae stand there an’ wonder.”

“So you’re walking up here as a sort of a -” The Doctor screwed up his face in thought. “A pilgrimage, because of that place?”

Jamie swiped at him, though he grinned as he did so. “You’re overthinkin’ it again,” he said. “Ye must’ve had faery stories, an’ things, where ye come from. ‘Cause – if your people are so clever that they forgot tae believe in somethin’ else -” It unnerved him, if truth be told, though he did not dare tell the Doctor so. But he could not help thinking of the schoolmasters he had heard of at home, the way they had emptied boys’ heads of stories and filled them with what they thought was good sense, and he shuddered. Not for the first time, he thanked whatever good fortune he had that he had been left to his father’s piping school, and to his mother’s tales. “That’s sad, I think,” he said instead.

“Oh – oh, I suppose we had stories, about deep time -” The Doctor frowned at Jamie’s triumphant grin. “But that’s different! It was all history. It was _true_.”

“So’s this tae Nila,” Jamie pointed out. “So’s the faery stories tae me. Maybe it’s just a different sort of history than you’re used to. Did ye ever think of that?”

The Doctor’s silence told Jamie that the answer was no, but he could not bring himself to say it. “I’ve tried awfully hard,” he said slowly, “to think about things differently. Not to be – ah – judgemental, I suppose. To accommodate.”

“I don’t want ye tae accommodate,” Jamie said softly. He had hardly expected the Doctor to come over all serious about it. There was a vulnerability to his expression that he had not seen before, like something about Jamie’s confidence in the faeries had shaken him. “It’s no’ like there’s somethin’ wrong with me, just ‘cause we don’t believe in the same things.” It wouldn’t be nice, he told himself, to have a dig at the Doctor when he was looking so worried – but maybe it would make him smile again. “ _Cultural context_ , an’ all that.”

The gamble paid off better than he had hoped, and the Doctor laughed. “Cultural context,” he repeated. “Yes, I suppose it is. I am sorry. Old habits, you know.”

It was not a schoolmaster standing before him in the shape of the Doctor, Jamie thought, but one of the schoolboys, running up against something he could not understand and wondering what to do with it. “’S alright.”

“And who am I, to say that there’s not a faery up there?”

Jamie grinned. “That’s the spirit.”

“So tell me.” The Doctor folded his arms, corners of his mouth twitching – but with fondness, not derision. Not even disbelief. “What else do you believe?”

“Well.” Of course, now he had asked, Jamie was left scrambling around for something – anything – to tell him. “Och, I’m not a good person tae ask. There’s much better storytellers than me.” He had been so caught up in the madness of the past couple of weeks that he had almost forgotten to be homesick, but in that moment he found he missed the people he had once known, and missed them desperately. It ought to have been his mother, he thought, walking up that hill, endless stories on her lips, off to collect another one. But it was just him, left with broken pieces of her words. “See – my _mathair_ , she used tae tell me this story, about the King of the Otters...”


	17. Explore

Somewhere in the library, the Doctor was calling for him.

The distant sound sent pinpricks of panic trailing over Jamie’s scalp and down his spine. Scrambling to gather up the books that were spread haphazardly across the floor before him, he piled a few thick volumes into his arms until he staggered under their weight. It might have been better, he thought, to have figured out where their proper places were before picking them up – but it was already too late. The teetering pile crashed to the floor in a flurry of yellow pages and brittle scraps of leather bindings.

It was hardly as if he was forbidden from coming to this part of the library, he told himself as the dust settled. Especially now, after everything. Surely they were a little beyond him leafing through a few dusty old books. But something about it still felt forbidden, like reading about the Doctor’s people was prying into his business behind his back.

He stuffed the books back on any shelf that would take them, grumbling indistinct curses as he looked down at himself and realised that bits of old leather and paper were sticking to the wool of his jumper. There was no way that the Doctor would not put two and two together. He could run off to some other part of the library, pretend the mess had come from some other books – but which ones?

It was too late for that, at any rate. The Doctor came wandering around the corner, and Jamie winced, screwing up his face against the gentle scolding he was sure would come – but when he opened his eyes again, all he saw on the Doctor’s face was surprise.

“Good gracious, what have you been doing?” he asked.

Jamie shrugged. “Nothin’.”

“It certainly doesn’t look like nothing.” The Doctor stepped closer to brush him down, tilting his head from side to side before focusing in on the haphazardly shelves books around Jamie. “What on Earth did you want with these old things?”

“Nothing,” Jamie repeated more insistently. “I havenae touched them.”

“ _Jamie_.” There was the stern look he had been waiting for, if a more mild version than he had been expecting. “There’s no need to lie to me, you know. It’s rather obvious what you’ve been up to. I’d just like to know -” He glanced at the spine of the book and chuckled. “ _The Ancient and Glorious History of Gallifrey_? Well, they’re not exactly your usual fare, are they?”

Somehow, the Doctor’s gentle curiosity was worse than any rebuke would have been, prickling him with shame once again. He had spent all this time sneaking around behind the Doctor’s back, waiting for him to be busy in a meeting with the Time Lords, tracking down the right part of the library over weeks – and for what? For the Doctor to be politely interested in what he had been reading?

“I was just interested. I didnae learn anything,” he added, as pleadingly earnest as if he was still trying to appease the Doctor. “I couldnae read any of it. The TARDIS didn’t translate.”

“No, I don’t expect she would,” the Doctor murmured, lifting one of the books to flick through its pages. “She wasn’t built with – well, with anyone other than Time Lords in mind, so she doesn’t usually bother translating Gallifreyan.”

“Is that what it is?” Despite himself, Jamie could not hide the eagerness in his voice. His fingers itched to pick up a book of his own, to trace over the letters with the new certainty that it was the Doctor’s native tongue, and he curled his hands into fists to resist the urge. “Gallifreyan?”

“Ye-es.” The Doctor frowned at him over the pages. “What’s gotten you so interested all of a sudden?”

“Nothing,” Jamie said hastily. “Och, I just – I spent all those years wonderin’ about ye, ye know. Where ye came from, an’ what your home was like. I told ye all about myself, but I hardly knew anythin’ about you.”

“Not for lack of trying,” the Doctor pointed out mildly. “You always listened closer than anyone, any time I talked about myself.”

Jamie’s cheeks reddened – then the weight of it settled over him, and he turned an accusing eye on the Doctor. “Ye knew!”

“Of course I knew. I almost told you more, many times, but – oh, I didn’t want to think about it, I suppose.”

“I never looked,” Jamie said. “I thought ye must have books about wherever it was you were from – about Gallifrey. But I didnae go lookin’, ‘cause I knew ye didnae want me tae know. But now I do know, I thought -” He fixed his gaze carefully on the floor, away from the Doctor. “I thought ye wouldnae mind me looking,” he mumbled.

“Of course I don’t mind,” the Doctor said. “But why did you want to? You’ve already seen Gallifrey.”

The question was so odd that Jamie could not help but glance back up at him, frowning. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“Well -” The Doctor shrugged, like it was obvious. “As much as I dislike them – when it comes down to it, they’re awfully boring people. History classes used to send me right to sleep, you know.”

“Ye can’t all be boring,” Jamie protested. “I mean – aye, the ones bossin’ us around, I don’t like them so much – but they made _you_ , didn’t they? They cannae all be the same. But every time I ask if we can say a bit longer, ye say everywhere else is more interestin’.”

“Well, it _is_ ,” the Doctor said. “I already know Gallifrey.”

“But I don’t. An’ I’d like to. For you. We dinnae even have tae meet any other Time Lords, just -” Jamie shrugged. “Just see where ye grew up, or somethin’. If ye want,” he added quickly. “Ye don’t have to, it was just an idea -”

“You’re asking me to spend time on Gallifrey,” the Doctor said softly.

“I’m no’ really – we dinnae have tae -”

“To show you around.”

“Well – aye, maybe.”

“To _enjoy_ it. The place I ran away from.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You know...” The Doctor fell quiet for a long time, and Jamie held himself stiff and tense, his heart pounding. “I didn’t hate all of Gallifrey, before I ran away from it.”

“Ye didn’t?”

“No. Of course, I was young and foolish, then, but -” He hesitated again, his expression almost pained. “I _have_ been wondering about some of my old haunts. Whether they’re still the same.”

“What were they like?” Jamie asked tentatively.

“Oh, the usual sorts of things. Seedier parts of the cities, you know, where people used to -” He dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, and Jamie felt oddly as if he was catching a glimpse of the Doctor as a defiant teenager – or whatever passed for being a teenager, amongst his people. “ _Touch_. With no gloves on. They won’t tell you about that in those books.”

He said it so seriously, and Jamie broke into uncontrollable giggles. “Shocking,” he said, his mock-scandalised tone broken and patchy. “Still, they might not give us funny looks, there.”

“Perhaps not. Or I could take you to the mountains, where there’s nobody to give us looks at all.” Wistfulness had glazed over the Doctor’s eyes, his gaze drifting up towards the ceiling. “Just a few old hermits. We used to run up there, you know. Yelling and screaming. With nobody to stop us.”

“We?” Jamie said softly.

“Mm. All gone now, of course. Goodness knows where.” The Doctor shook himself. “I really wouldn’t advise reading those old books, you know. That is – it _is_ the official history. I do think I’d be a better tour guide.”

“I thought ye always fell asleep in history classes.”

“I listened to the teacher while I slept.” The Doctor took his hands, twirling him around and whisking him out of the aisle. “Ah! I came to tell you. We’ve got a few days off until our next mission.”

“Took them long enough.”

“Yes, well, ah – it’s the perfect opportunity, isn’t it?”

Jamie stumbled to a halt, gripping the Doctor’s arms to hold him still. It was entirely rhetorical, he told himself firmly. Surely the Doctor didn’t really mean - “The perfect opportunity for what?”

The Doctor clutched at him in return, beaming. “Would you like to visit Gallifrey with me, Jamie?”

How long had he been waiting to hear those words, even before he knew exactly which form they would take?

“Aye, I would,” he said, finally letting a smile break across his face. “I’d love to.”


	18. Refreshing

“You’re hurt.”

“Och.” Batting the Doctor’s hands away from his face, Jamie nudged at the empty spot beside him on the sofa with his foot. “Stop fussin’ at me an’ sit down.”

“It’s bleeding,” the Doctor insisted.

“It’s just a wee scrape.”

The Doctor huffed, folding his arms. “I thought we were meant to be catching our breath here, not – not denying ourselves medical treatment.”

“Aye, but...” Jamie shrugged. “Is it really medical treatment if you’re the one patchin’ me up, an’ you’re always sayin’ you’re not a medical doctor?”

“Yes.” Sitting down beside him, the Doctor reached out to take the mug of tea from Jamie’s hands and lift his chin to examine him better. Jamie sighed, but closed his eyes and let his head be turned back and forth as the Doctor checked him over. It was pleasant, in a way, being fussed over for something so small – not that he would ever give the Doctor the satisfaction of hearing him admit it. But the Doctor’s fingers were cool against his cheek, as deft as if he was fiddling with some delicate bundle of wiring, and he hardly noticed that something was being smoothed over the scrape until he opened his eyes and saw a glimpse of white in the corner of his vision. “It’s only a small plaster,” the Doctor was saying. “But it wouldn’t do to go bleeding all over borrowed pyjamas, would it?”

“Alright, then.” Stretching out, Jamie planted his feet in the Doctor’s lap and reached over to take the mug back from him. It was pleasantly warm, just cool enough to wrap his fingers around without burning himself, and he closed his eyes again to savour the feeling. Bundled into pyjamas slightly too large for him, sat on an overstuffed sofa with the Doctor fiddling idly with a loose thread on the hem of his trousers, he could almost forget that they were being chased.

Almost.

“Is it really still out there?” he asked.

“Unless it’s lost interest,” the Doctor murmured distractedly. “Which I doubt. But we’re quite safe for now, so long as the defences hold.”

“So why can’t we just...” Jamie rolled his shrug into a luxurious stretch, nestling himself further down further against the pillows. “Stay here until it goes away again? Ye said yourself, it only appears once every few years.” He held up his free hand before the Doctor could reply, quietening him. “I know, I know. You’d never just walk away from somethin’ like that, an’ neither would I. But ye have tae admit, it’s nice here.”

“Well, it’s certainly...” The Doctor chuckled. “It’s certainly the nicest safe house I’ve ever stayed in.”

Smiling, Jamie tipped his head back against the arm of the sofa and closed his eyes. Perhaps there was something in the water, he thought idly, that was making him feel so relaxed. The Doctor had told him that the house had been built on a gas vein that had been tapped to heat the water and warm the house and power its seemingly endless convenient gadgets – and, so it seemed, to seep out around them and keep away the beastie that was chasing them. Maybe whatever it was that got the creature so riled up could cause complete contentment and relaxation in humans. Or maybe it was just that all the adrenaline had drained away, and he was left tired but bundled up safe and warm, his eyes beginning to slip closed.

Before he could drift too close to the edges of sleep, the Doctor threw his legs out of his lap, sitting bolt upright. “Shh,” he hissed as Jamie struggled to sit up. “I heard something.”

Jamie’s blood ran cold at the sharpness in his voice. “Is it -”

“ _Shh_ ,” the Doctor repeated. “I’m listening.”

They sat in dead silence for an agonisingly long minute, both stiff and still and silent. There was something out there, alright – something big, its claws clacking against the stony ground, its breath huffing and snuffling, mapping out its path around them. Sometimes it seemed to dip in closer, its footsteps growing faster, but it always thudded away from them again.

“That must be it, out there,” Jamie murmured. “The gas is keepin’ it away, like ye said.”

The Doctor sat back, one hand pressed over each side of his chest. “Well, at least we know the boundary works,” he said softly. “Still so keen on staying?”

Jamie leant back against the cushions himself, but did not entirely allow himself to relax. One hand stayed curled around the hilt of the knife at his hip – though what one small knife could do against a creature like the one outside, he was not quite sure. He could only imagine what it was they were up against. Something like a wolf or a bear, maybe, with thick, impenetrable fur. Or maybe something with fangs that hung over its slavering lips, or chitinous armour, or enormous horns that would sweep him away before he even got close. “No’ so keen,” he said, a little shakily. “Thinkin’ about movin’ on to the next place, actually.” He jerked his head towards the window, grateful that it was covered by thick curtains. Not seeing what was outside might be nervewracking, but surely catching glimpses would be worse. “Startin’ tae seem like a bad neighbourhood out there.”

He grinned over at the Doctor, but it quickly turned to a frown when he did not get so much as a smile from him. He had gone still and quiet again, only his eyes moving rapidly as he glanced around the room.

“Jamie,” he said, his voice low but full of poorly-concealed panic. “You did refresh the gas stores like I asked, didn’t you?”

“’Course I did,” Jamie scoffed. He tilted his head back, rolling his eyes towards the ceiling, thinking it over. “I think I did, anyway.”

“ _Jamie_!” the Doctor hissed.

“I’m sure I did!” Jamie protested, just a little too loudly. Ducking his head, he glanced towards the window again. The clicking of the creature’s claws had stopped. “It’s fine,” he said, more softly this time. “We won’t run out.”

“Are you _sure_ it was full?”

The silence outside turned to a slow, whining scratching, like the creature was drawing its claws across the rock. As it went on, it reached a pitch that was almost painful, and Jamie screwed up his face in discomfort. “Pretty sure,” he said.

“Well, we’ll know soon enough.” The Doctor’s hands were clasped in is lap in a way that would almost have been composed if his knuckles had not been so white. “If it doesn’t get in soon, then you must have filled it up.”

Everything fell quiet once again. Jamie fixed his eyes on the clock on the opposite wall, watching the seconds hand tick around agonisingly slowly. “How long do we have tae wait?”

The Doctor did not reply.

_Tick. Tick._

The creature was off again. Its footsteps grew more distant, and Jamie’s heart leapt until it padded around to the other side of the house.

_Tick. Tick._

The lights flickered. Dust trickled from the ceiling.

_Tick. Tick._

“The house is drawing power away from the support systems,” the Doctor whispered. “It’s using everything it’s got to keep that thing outside.”

It was walking again. It looped around the house once – twice – then the sound of it started to fade, more consistently this time. The Doctor and Jamie stayed frozen in place, sitting ramrod straight and entirely still until silence had completely enveloped them for a few minutes. Only then did the Doctor let himself slump, half-collapsing into himself.

“It’s gone,” he mumbled into the heels of his hands. “I hope.”

“Will it come back?”

“I do hope not.” He shook his head, face still covered by his palms. “I’m not sure the house can take another beating like that. I wish I knew what it did out there. All I know is that it wants to get in.”

Shuffling over on the sofa, Jamie wrapped his arm around the Doctor’s shoulders and pulled him down to lean against his chest. “Ye look exhausted,” he said. “Ye need tae sleep, you’ve got tae be fit for tomorrow.”

“I’m fine,” the Doctor said, evidently aiming for plaintive and ending up with unconvincing. “Someone needs to keep watch.”

“I’ll do it,” Jamie insisted. “I’m no’ tired.”

“Jamie -”

“I couldn’t sleep now.” It was as far from the truth as Jamie could imagine. Any relaxation he had felt earlier had drained away, leaving his nerves raw with panic, and he longed to close his eyes and forget it all. “Really,” he added when the Doctor gave him a disbelieving look.

“Hmph.” The Doctor still looked like he wanted to argue, but he was already settling himself more comfortably against Jamie’s shoulder. “Promise you’ll wake me in a few hours.”

“Aye, I promise.”

“Or if there’s any more trouble.”

“ _Promise_.”

“Alright, then.” The Doctor leant up to press his nose against the underside of Jamie’s jaw. “Thank you.”

Wrapping his arms around the Doctor more tightly, Jamie curled his hands into fists and set his eyes firmly on the window. “Don’t worry. I’ll look after ye.”


	19. Celestial

A book in one hand, a cup of tea in the other, the stars bright above him, and all from the comfort of his own room on board the TARDIS. Yes, the Doctor thought, he could get used to this sort of thing. It was an oddly human pastime, this _relaxing_ business. Oh, that was hardly to say he had never sat quietly and read a book before – though he had been told he had never quite done enough of it, in his years at the Academy. But to sit and read purely for the pleasure for it, to bask in taking his time with it when a simple flick through would have done… well, he had the needs of his human companions for food and sleep and relaxation of their own to thank for that.

The door creaked open.

Only by a few centimetres, and it quickly rocked its way into stillness again, but he glowered at it anyway. He had just been getting to a rather exciting part, and the door had just had to go and ruin the suspense.

It swung open a little more, almost as if it had read his thoughts and wanted to spite him. Perhaps it had.

“There’s no need for that, now, dear,” he said, patting the wall by way of placating the TARDIS, though in truth he felt more than a little peeved. “I know you’re keen to be off again – but we’ve all found something to occupy ourselves with. I don’t suppose there’s any chance of you doing the same.”

He had expected the door to swing closed after that, the TARDIS roundly but not unfairly chastised. But it stayed as it was – opened even further, perhaps. Only when he looked again did he see that there was someone standing behind it.

So it had not been the TARDIS trying to get his attention after all.

“Sorry, dear,” he murmured, patting the wall with rather more affection this time. Distantly, he heard the ship give a rumble that could almost have been an offended huff. “Ah – hello, Jamie.”

“Hullo.” Finally acknowledged, Jamie pushed the door open fully and stepped inside. His eyes wandered slowly across the room before eventually settling on the Doctor, taking in his book, the covers pulled up to his chest. “You’re busy, I can -”

“No, no, it’s quiet alright.” Shuffling over on the bed to make room, the Doctor patted the space beside him. “I’m not too busy for – whatever it is you need.” As Jamie came closer, he realised that there were dark shadows under his half-closed eyes. “Have you been asleep?”

Jamie nodded. “Woke up,” he mumbled.

“Nightmare?”

A long pause – then Jamie nodded again.

“I see.” He tapped at the blankets again, and Jamie eased himself down slowly, as stiff and tentative as if he was still feeling whatever hurt he had experienced in his dreams. He perched himself on the very edge, so far over that it must have been uncomfortable. “And you’d like to spend the night here, is that it?” Jamie mumbled something indistinct. “There’s no need to be embarrassed, Jamie.”

“I’m no’ embarrassed,” Jamie said, a little too quickly. “Just – tired, that’s all.”

“Mm. Well.” The Doctor flicked over to the next page of his book. “If you’re sure.”

He held Jamie’s gaze for a moment longer, then turned back to his book. He had just taken in the next line when - “I couldnae go back to sleep, I – I didnae want to be alone.”

“Go on, then.” Nudging him off the bed, the Doctor held the covers up, and Jamie eagerly clambered beneath them. He curled himself on his side, back carefully turned towards the Doctor, still perched on the edge so they did not touch. “You can just ask, you know.”

They lapsed back into silence, Jamie lying there quite still, the Doctor going back to his reading. It was rather a shame that the suspense had been well and truly broken – but the warm weight of Jamie beside him drained him of any irritation. And besides, the book was enjoyable, but not quite so thrilling that he minded all too much.

He was just beginning to grow tired of it when Jamie spoke again. “There’s stars.”

“Mm.” Tilting his mug back to drain the last dregs from it, the Doctor set the book aside and looked over to frown at him. Jamie was still folded in on himself, looking for all the world like he was asleep, though if he leant over a little he could see that his eyes were still open. “Where’s the stars?”

“On your ceiling.”

“Oh!” The Doctor glanced up at them, as if he had only just noticed them himself. “So there are.”

“Is that what’s outside, then?” Jamie jerked his head towards the bedroom wall, as if they were on the edge of the TARDIS – or indeed as if the edges of the ship’s interior butted up against their reality, and there really were stars outside. A figment of the human imagination, of course, something stern in the Doctor’s mind reminded him – but a charming one nonetheless.

That same voice reminded him of just what stars they were. “Ah – no,” he said. “No, they’re – different stars.”

He did not need to see Jamie’s face to know that wheels were turning in his mind, and was relieved that he seemed too tired to push further. “Would ye – talk to me?” he asked instead. “Ye dinnae have to, but – I still cannae sleep. Maybe if ye read me a wee bit of your book, or somethin’.”

“Oh!” The Doctor glanced back at the book, discarded on his side table. Of course he had been foolish enough to leave out the bookmark – and he was not so invested that he felt like rifling through to find his place. “It isn’t that exciting,” he admitted. “Though I suppose that might put you to sleep faster.”

“Don’t ye have a story of your own, then?” Jamie’s words were mumbled, half-lost against the covers pulled up to his chin. For all that he had just said he could not go back to sleep, he seemed rather close to it. The sight of him looking so content sent a rush of affection through the Doctor, and he was not sure which frightened him more – the feeling itself or the knowledge that it was not entirely unwelcome. “Can’t ye tell me about somewhere you’ve been?”

“But I’ve already been there,” the Doctor pointed out. “It isn’t as exciting for me to remember as it is for you to hear it.”

“Isn’t it exciting just tae tell it?” Jamie rolled over, and the sight of his cheek half-squashed against the pillow made the Doctor’s heart clench. He could hardly say no, not when Jamie was looking at him so pleadingly.

“Oh, alright, then,” he grumbled at last. “You’d best make yourself comfortable.” Grinning triumphantly, Jamie squirmed his way further under the covers until there was almost nothing left of him but his eyes, wide and eager. “Now. I suppose there was the last time I met the Toymaker...”


	20. Home

Jamie and Polly were due back any moment now, the Doctor told himself bracingly. Soon enough he would hear the door bang open downstairs, and Jamie and Polly would come clattering inside, and his achingly long wait would be over.

Two weeks had hardly sounded like any time at all at the beginning – a mere blink of an eye for someone like himself. Polly had wanted to spend some time with Jamie, and Jamie had wanted to take a trip to Scotland, and he himself had ushered them off knowing that UNIT had a spot of bother that they were not quite qualified to deal with themselves. He had only helped out on a purely casual basis, of course. Nothing so serious as _consulting_ work, whatever the Colonel – the Brigadier, now – had said.

But he had quite forgotten how tedious linear time could be. The trouble had not been so difficult as he had been hoping – just a few alien students, trapped on Earth after a joyride gone wrong, and he had found himself reduced to a glorified translator. And so the days had dragged endlessly on, with little to differentiate them but the changing prices at the supermarket. Once or twice he had toyed with the idea of hopping forwards a few days in the TARDIS, but he had assured Jamie that he would be able to cope on his own, and he was not one to back down from a promise like that. Especially one made to Jamie, who would never let him forget it if he did.

His watch buzzed once – twice – three times. Seven minutes past three o’clock, just enough time for the bus to have arrived and for Polly and Jamie to have walked home. Right on schedule, the door burst open, filling the too-silent house with eager chatter and the taking off of coats. Someone mumbled an offer of tea.

“Aye, why not.” Polly had been the one to ask, then. “Maybe the Doctor’d like some too. Hey, Doctor, are ye home?”

Hauling himself up from the bed, the Doctor padded out of Ben and Polly’s spare bedroom and down the stairs into the living room. “I’m here,” he mumbled, a little blearily – but his eyes could not help but light up at the sight of the pair of them. “Hello, you two.”

“Doctor!” Polly exclaimed, hurrying over to wrap him in a hug. “Oh, it’s funny to come back home to you.”

“So did ye do it?” Jamie asked teasingly, folding the Doctor in a hug of his own. “We wondered if ye would.”

“So did I,” the Doctor said with a touch of rueful pride. “I’ll admit, I was – ah – _tempted_ , once or twice, to skip a few days – but I stuck it out in the end.” Setting her bag down, Polly squeezed his shoulder again before heading off towards the kitchen, leaving the Doctor and Jamie to settle themselves on the sofa. “How was Scotland?”

“ _Och_ ,” was all Jamie said for a long moment. He hung his head, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth. “Busy,” he said at last. “Big. A wee bit odd.”

The Doctor chuckled. “Odd?”

“Och, I don’t know. Ye know – we went up tae Edinburgh, right. An’ I thought I knew what Edinburgh was like, ‘cause I’d been there before for a wee while, what with – everythin’.”

“He thought he knew his way around,” Polly called from the kitchen. “Kept getting us lost.”

“Whisht, ye,” Jamie called back, wrinkling his nose at her laughter. “It’s no’ my fault it’s all different now.”

“You don’t seem too pleased,” the Doctor said tentatively.

“I don’t think I am.” Jamie shook his head. “It was like – seein’ bits of your life all cut up an’ made into somethin’ else. Do ye know – they have tartans for _families_ now?”

The Doctor did know, of course, but he mustered up a surprised expression anyway. “Really?”

“Aye. An’ I asked where they come from, an’ the wee man at the shop said it was traditional. _Traditional_. A bunch of Lowlanders runnin’ around in tartan an’ saying it belongs to their families.” He scoffed. “It was just – a wee bit odd, ye know? ‘Spose last time I was there it was still full of Lowlanders paradin’ around like us, but then I knew why. Now – it’s like they actually think our stuff’s theirs.”

“So you didn’t enjoy yourself?”

“Now, I didnae say that.” Jamie tapped the backpack that still sat at his feet. “They had some good music, ye know. Polly bought me a – a record.” He beamed. “Thought I was dreamin’ when I found something in Gaelic, ye know.”

“Oh, good.” Stretching out, the Doctor draped his arm over Jamie’s shoulders casually. The feeling of Jamie’s warmth through his shirt settled something in his chest, and he closed his eyes to better soak it in. He _had_ missed him terribly, after all. Really, he had no idea how he had lasted all those years without him, before he had been judged in need of supervision. “So you found a little piece of home anyway, then.”

“Somethin’ like that. It’s different, but – good different, ye know?” Jamie shrugged – but gently, not enough to dislodge the Doctor’s arm. He wriggled against the sofa cushions, nestling himself down and tilting himself over to rest against the Doctor’s side. The simple motion made the peacefulness that had rooted itself in the Doctor’s chest blossom into full-blown affection. “Doesnae really feel like I’ve been home, though. Just back tae somewhere I recognise.”

“Mm. Maybe things would be different if you – went home properly, as it were.”

“Maybe. I dunno.” Jamie glanced over his shoulder, checking that Polly was still in the kitchen, and for the first time a hint of discomfort appeared on his face. He leant closer to the Doctor, dropping his voice. “Polly wanted tae go – almost bought us some tickets up north, but I didnae want to. I’m not sure I – want tae see it, ye know?”

The Doctor was quiet for a long moment, tapping his fingers against Jamie’s shoulder as he thought it over. “You wouldn’t want to go home?” Jamie had always spoken with such fondness of his home, and his people. He had envied him, in a way, to carry such affection with him. He might have missed it, but at least he had something to miss. “I thought you loved it there.”

“Aye, I do! ‘Course I do. Which is why – ye know. I wouldnae want tae see it changed. Houses knocked down, an’ gravestones, an’ all that. But ‘specially not if it was like – that.”

“Well, I dare say Edinburgh is – ah – rather more of a tourist trap than your village would be. But I still don’t see what’s so terrible about people liking tartan.”

“It’s no’ so much that. Aye, it’s a bit funny to see a bunch of Lowlanders paradin’ around like they like us, but I said, I’ve seen that before. An’ -” Jamie began to tease at the hem of his kilt, ducking his head in an attempt to conceal a grin. “I did get a couple of compliments, ye know. It’s no’ every day that happens.” His smile faded again, as quickly as it had come. “But it’s more like – bein’ in Edinburgh before was one thing, right, when they were all cheerin’ for us, ‘cause they thought we’d win. But it’s a wee bit odd tae have been through a war, an’ have it mess with your head, an’ then ye turn around and see pictures of it on sweets tins.”

“Ah.”

“Aye.”

“I seem to remember you didn’t have a particularly high opinion of your prince.”

“No’ exactly. I didnae go along for his sake.”

“So seeing pictures of him looking rather charming on shortbread tins… Yes, I think I see what you mean.” The Doctor drew his hand over his face. “Do you regret going?”

Jamie hesitated, but shook his head firmly in the end. “I’ll just feel a wee bit strange about it for a while, that’s all. I’ve got tae think about it.” Polly bustled back into the room, balancing a tray with three cups of tea. “We had a good time, didn’t we, Polly?”

“Oh, it was fantastic.” She set the tray down on the coffee table with a crash. The contents of one cup sloshed over the edge, and she grimaced, watching it slowly soak into the wood beneath it. “ _Oops_. Good thing Ben’s still away.” Her eyes travelled up from the table to the rest of the room, still in undeniable disarray. His own frustrations had hardly helped in that regard, the Doctor thought with a twist of guilt. For the first time, he regretted not accepting the Brigadier’s offer of money. Perhaps then he could have paid to send someone over to help Polly clean things up.

“Ah – when is Ben’s ship due back?” he asked instead.

“Next week.” Tossing her fringe away from her eyes, Polly collapsed into the chair opposite them. “I’ve got time to get the house in order.” She threw them a self-deprecating smile. “I’m not exactly the perfect housewife.”

“You’re not a housewife at all, from what I gather,” the Doctor countered. “But Ben doesn’t mind, of course.”

“No, he doesn’t,” Polly agreed. “But his mother is a different story. You should have seen her face – she came over, last month, no warning whatsoever, and the place was in an absolute state because I’d been so busy with work...”

She chattered on, and the Doctor let himself relax back into the sofa. Jamie was laughing at something that he had not quite caught, watching Polly pull faces along with her story, and a wave of comfortable familiarity washed over him. If he closed his eyes, he could almost pretend that they were back on the TARDIS – that they were not all older than when they had first parted ways, and that the joy of sharing each other’s company could stretch on forever. That there would never have to be an ending.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that troubled sort of melancholy settle over Jamie’s face again, and he held his hand out for him to squeeze.

_I’ll tell you later_.

He did not know whether he had caught the thought drifting over to him through their pressed-together palms or whether it had simply been intuition, but he pushed a thought of his own to the forefront of his mind, willing Jamie to understand it.

_It’s my turn to pretend that things don't change_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> runrig fan jamie rights
> 
> obviously the intersections of highland-lowland identity were more complex in the 20th century and in the 18th century than I've made them out to be here but my excuse is that this is jamie's subjective point of view. he skipped past 200 years of combined romanticism and southward migration & he's very confused


	21. Lucky

“What good luck,” the Doctor was saying cheerfully, “that the side door happened to be unlocked.”

Good luck was not exactly how he would have put it, Jamie thought, wrinkling his nose and trying in vain to shake some of the water out of his boots. There was no other word for the pipe they were wandering through but _damp_. The overflow of the canals above them filled the bottom in a layer several inches deep and thick with grit and algae, and the walls were so slick with moisture and overgrown with stubborn little plants that they might as well have been sodden themselves. But the Doctor traipsed on, sometimes whistling to himself happily, mostly espousing the many virtues of the path they had found.

“And what good luck,” he was carrying on, “that it’s such a direct route.”

“Aye,” Jamie said, for what must have been the thousandth time. “Very lucky.” He would have much preferred to try and catch up to this beastie through somewhere with a little more light, that was for sure. But the Doctor never seemed to mind about the darkness. Jamie could only hope that the creature was not similarly immune. “What are we gonnae do when we find it?”

“Ah. Yes.” A rustling sound echoed down the pipe from ahead of him, and Jamie could only imagine that the Doctor was rifling through his pockets. Sure enough, only a moment later something cold and metallic was thrust against his stomach, and he fumbled to catch hold of it. It was something like a set of manacles, just slightly too large to have fitted inside the Doctor’s coat. “We’re going to trap it and see if we can’t take care of whatever it is that’s making it more aggressive than it should be.”

“Oh, aye.” Jamie thought it over for a moment. “How are ye gonnae figure out what it is?”

“Well, we’ll simply have to get a closer look at it, that’s all.”

A hard pit of dread sunk through Jamie’s stomach, and he glanced down at the manacles in his hands. “No.”

“It’s quite simple,” the Doctor said soothingly. “All you have to do is catch it and get those around its hind legs. Its front legs aren’t strong enough to carry it particularly far.”

“An’ then you’ll get the easy job of walkin’ up to it afterwards, I ‘spose?”

“Oh – I wouldn’t exactly call my part easy.” The Doctor held up another something, and Jamie squinted at it, trying to figure out its shape from the way the few fractions of light that lit their way glinted off its surface. Tweezers, perhaps, or a small knife. Maybe even a syringe. “It could still bite my hand off while I’m tending to it.”

“Great,” Jamie muttered under his breath. “That’s very comforting.”

The Doctor stopped so suddenly that he bumped right into the back of him, shoving him forwards against something solid. “Oof! Do watch where you’re going, Jamie.”

“Sorry,” Jamie muttered. “I cannae see so well as ye can.” He leant over the Doctor’s shoulder, craning his neck to see a door looming out of the darkness before them. “What’s this, then?”

“I’m not sure,” the Doctor murmured. “By my estimations, it shouldn’t be closed.”

“Is it not the way up tae the surface again?”

“No, it can’t be – we haven’t come far enough, and there’s nowhere for the water to have gotten out. It’s almost as if it’s – well, some sort of airlock.”

Jamie glanced around at the walls of the pipe. “What’s an airlock doin’ down here? I didnae think anyone came this far.”

“Well, they _don’t_ , not normally – but there is a system for sectioning off certain pipes to control the inflow into the canals. So it doesn’t flood after it rains, you know. Some of the excess water will be kept here until it can be safely carried downstream and away from the city.”

“An’ if it’s closed – is it full?”

“Well...” Leaning forwards, the Doctor pressed his weight against the circular handle in the middle of the door. It let out an awful whining sound, metal screeching against rusted metal, but he only managed to turn it a little way before stumbling back again, rubbing at his palms. “I don’t see why it would be. There hasn’t been an overflow for some time. No, I think this must be the way forward.”

There were too many things wrong with the whole situation for Jamie to wrap his mind around them all. The Doctor would figure it out, he told himself. He always did in the end. And yet he _did_ have such a knack for missing the obvious…

Something was echoing down the pipe.

Almost like the click of claws on metal, half-muffled by water.

Turning around agonisingly slowly, Jamie found himself face-to-face with a very large, very luminescent, and very _toothy_ missed obvious.

“Doctor!” he hissed, tugging on the sleeve of the Doctor’s coat without daring to turn away from the creature. It stretched its head forwards, sniffing at him, and he screwed up his face against the rancid raw-meat smell of its breath. “ _Doctor_!”

“ _Jamie_!” the Doctor hissed back. “I am _trying_ to get this door open!”

“Doctor...” Jamie gripped his shoulder tighter against the Doctor’s efforts to shake him off. “Ye know how ye said it was lucky? That we could get down here?”

“Yes, I did, didn’t I.” Leaving Jamie to hold onto him, the Doctor threw his weight onto the door handle once more. It jumped – fell still – then slowly, painfully, began to turn. “And I dare say it’s rather lucky that this isn’t too securely locked, either.”

The door slid open a tiny fraction. Cold water slopped over them through the gap.

“Ah,” was all the Doctor said as he hurriedly slammed the door closed again. Turning around to meet Jamie’s eyes a little sheepishly, he caught sight of the creature looming over them. “ _Ah_.”

“Aye.”

The creature took a step forward, the dim light radiating out from its fur just enough to highlight its long, sharp snout and slavering jaws. Jamie pressed himself back against the Doctor, who in turn leant against the door, frantically trying to lock it again.

“Jamie,” he said, his voice low and barely concealing his panic. “You know how I said all those things were lucky?”

“Aye?”

“Well, I’m beginning to think we’ve been… _set up_ , as it were. Sent on a wild goose chase.”

“Ye mean – someone knew we’d go through that door? An’ sent this thing after us?”

“Something along those lines, yes.”

Tilting its head back and forth, the creature fixed first one beady eye on them, then the other. Jamie leant back, turning slightly towards the Doctor. “I don’t suppose ye have any ideas.”

“Well...” Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that the Doctor’s gaze was held firmly on the creature’s underside. As it stamped and shuffled around, he caught a glimpse of what he was looking at – an enormous pustule of glowing purple liquid hanging from its stomach. Even in the sickly light, he could see that the skin around it was reddened, the veins cast in stark black. “I do have one idea.”

It had been a small knife in his hand, Jamie saw, and with a rush of horror he realised exactly what the Doctor was thinking. “Ye can’t!” he exclaimed – and the loudness of his words made the creature screech, spraying sticky saliva over them. It lunged forwards, and they ducked out of the way in unison, leaving it to crash against the metal of the door behind them. Stunned, it pulled back to shake its head, and Jamie bit back another exclamation, this time of triumph. Darting forwards, the Doctor paused to grasp the knife more firmly before stabbing it into the pustule.

The creature’s first screech had been nothing to the ear-shattering roar it let out as the growth burst open. The Doctor barely managed to duck out of the way in time before its contents splattered over the walls of the pipe, leaving only smoking gaps where plants had once grown. Fumbling for Jamie’s hand, he pulled him away, but the creature was thrashing around, too caught up in its own pain to notice them. The luminescence was slowly draining from its fur, pouring out alongside the purple liquid. Convulsing, it smashed its head against the door once – twice – three times.

A crack had appeared in the metal.

It widened – split – and bowed inwards. Water began to flow through it, a trickle growing into a larger spray, making the creature startle and stumble backwards. Fumbling around in a frenzy of limbs and tail, still bellowing out its fright and pain, it fixed its eyes on the Doctor and Jamie once more.

“Ah, Jamie...” The Doctor reached out for his hand. “When I say run...”

The crack split open even wider, sending water thundering into the pipe.

If the Doctor had yelled _run_ , it was lost in the cacophony of water and creature and their own pounding footsteps. The pipe was too narrow for them to run side by side, but they kept their hands clutched between them as they went, the Doctor pulling Jamie onwards. From the crashing that echoed down the pipe behind them, he knew that the creature was following close behind, though he did not dare spare a glance over his shoulder. It could easily trample them to death, he thought in a wave of horror, though he wondered if it would not be the water that got to them first.

Shaking himself, he fixed his gaze on the Doctor running ahead of him, mustering what was left of his breath to call out. “Is this really what ye call _lucky_?”


	22. Guardian

“The Doctor said _what_?”

“He said you were going to protect us,” the little Ghim said happily. They were hopping from one foot to the other, still glowing with the satisfaction of having been allowed to use the radio, too distracted to notice the mounting horror Jamie was sure was showing on his face. “That we’d be alright now you were here.”

Turning away from the eager crowd clustered in front of him, Jamie scrubbed his hand over his face, pressing it over his mouth to muffle his curses. He was going to have stern words with the Doctor, he told himself, whenever he saw him again. And if it was a _when_ , not an _if_.

Or at least, he had thought so up until a minute ago.

“What about Jas?” he asked, turning back to the Ghim who had carried the message – Isk? Pui? He was nowhere near close to learning all their names, let alone shepherding them well enough to guide them home. There always seemed to be more of them than there really were, scuttling about him on their many legs. “Is she not comin’?”

“Jas is gone,” the Ghim told him, as cheerful as ever. “The Doctor told us she vanished a few nights ago.” His voice dropped to a delightedly horrified whisper. “He thinks the They overheard us somehow and took her.”

“Is there no one else?” It was all Jamie could do to keep from wailing the words out in despair. He could not protect these people. A Ghim warrior might not have been able to do much against the colonists, the They – at least Jamie could reach higher than a human’s knees – but it was their mind for strategy that he needed more than anything. Someone who could frighten off the sharp-beasts and the patrols that the colonists were sending after them for long enough that they could escape. With Jas’ speed and archery skills and quick thinking, the job had seemed easy enough. But now… “What about Rym?”

“Isk said the Doctor needs her,” another Ghim piped up. So it was Isk he had been speaking to, then. Well, it was a start, he supposed. He would have to get to know them all sooner or later.

Sitting down heavily, he buried his face in his hands. The scuffling of claws on dirt told him that the Ghim were pressing in closer, crowding around him, and sure enough he felt their tiny paws on their arms a moment later. He was sure they meant it in comfort, but the physical reminder of how small and defenceless they were only agitated the bundle of disbelief and anxiety that had fixed itself in his stomach. It was just like the Doctor, to send him out to track down one of the outer villages, to promise that he would send someone to guard him on their way back to the Ghim’s main city, and then to leave him in charge instead.

“Is it true you’re a great warrior?” one of the Ghim children piped up from the back.

“Eh?” Startled out of his thoughts, Jamie lifted his head. “Who told ye that?”

“The Doctor said it to Isk.” The child broke into a toothy grin. “I overheard.”

“It’s true!” Isk said. The Ghim around him were beginning to murmur amongst themselves, and he twisted around to address them all excitedly. “The Doctor said he found them in a great battle. He said he’s the one who can protect us against the Them, that he’s as strong as ten pack-beasts, that he’s going to get us home!” With each point his gestures grew wilder and more emphatic, and the crowd gasped along with him as he spoke.

It was hardly difficult to be stronger than ten of the Ghim’s pack-beasts, Jamie thought, when they were only about the size of a small dog. “Hey, hey. Listen. Listen!” The Ghim fell silent when he shouted over their excited babbling. “I don’t know what the Doctor thinks he’s on about, but I’m no’ some great warrior, alright?”

As quickly as they had worked themselves into an excited frenzy, the Ghim deflated as one. “But what about the great battle?” another one – Tut, Jamie thought – asked. “Was he lying to us?”

“Aye, I ‘spose it’s true, in a manner of speakin’, but...” Jamie spread his hands out in front of him. “I wasnae meant tae be fighting. I didnae really know what I was doin’.” He shrugged. “I’m just a musician, really.” The crowd was murmuring again, this time more darkly. “An’ all I’ve got is some rusty old sword ye stole from the colonists. I don’t know what he wants me to do for ye.”

Pushing himself to his feet, he stormed off to the tent before he could hear any more out of them, whisking the flaps closed behind him in an irritated flourish and flopping down onto the cushions that littered the floor. Distantly, he could still hear the chatter of the Ghim, rising to a furious, shrill crescendo, each of them shouting above the other. It hardly helped that they talked like they shared one mind, or that they never seemed to take anything as bad news. But there was nothing he could do for them, Jamie insisted to himself. If they were attacked, there would be nothing he could do. Their one chance might have been to depend on their small size to hide amongst the underbrush of the forest – but with him alongside them, that was out of the picture.

“What was he thinkin’,” he mumbled to himself, tugging the string around his neck out from beneath his shirt to run his fingers over the ring that hung from it. “Tellin’ them I’m some sort of warrior.” It always seemed to fall to him to protect the Doctor, he admitted – but there was a difference between jumping on the back of some beastie to stop it from chewing his husband’s arm off and actually fighting people who knew what they were doing. The colonists had _guns_. They could pick him off before he and his half-broken sword could get within reach.

With a start, he realised that one of the Ghim had not been woken by the commotion outside. It was a child, small enough that he could comfortably bear their weight in one hand, half-buried amongst the cushions and blankets. One paw clutched at a bundle of scraps that might have been something like a ragdoll. The other was pressed against their mouth, and they chewed absently on an outstretched claw as it slept.

Shuffling closer, Jamie picked them up to cradle them in his arms. They did not wake, but simply turned over, letting out a soft whistle as if chattering away with the others even in their sleep. He stared down at them, wondering what would happen if he refused to even try and do as the Doctor asked. The child in his arms would not live to see the city, that was for sure. And for all that the Doctor could be incredibly obtuse, he was far from entirely clueless. In fact, Jamie thought, some of his most idiotic decisions had turned out to be his wisest. He knew Jamie was not the warrior he had made him out to be, and that one person could never hope to defeat the colonists alone. Perhaps not even Jas.

The Ghim had needed hope, he realised. They had needed to hear that they had been sent some great saviour. And whatever the real answer to getting them back safely was, the Doctor had needed the Ghim to trust that he would find it.

Still cradling the child, he stood up to push his way out of the tent and found that the crowd had stayed clustered around outside. They fell into an almost reverent silence when they saw him emerge.

“I can do it,” he said. “I’ll get ye home.”

The Ghim broke into cheers at his words, leaping up and down and clutching at each other. Finally hearing the noise, the child in Jamie’s arms stirred and woke, blinking sleepily down at their comrades. They slipped from his grasp, tumbling to the earth in a tangle of limbs, but sprung up again to dance along, apparently oblivious to having fallen at all.

While they were all distracted, Jamie turned his gaze up towards the sky. Folding his ring into his fist, he pulled down on it until the string dug into the back of his neck. “I just hope I know what I’m doin’, Doctor,” he murmured.


	23. Flight

The radio crackled into life, wheezing out a broken sound that hissed with static. “Jamie? Jamie, are you there?”

Startled out of his half-doze, Jamie all but flung himself across the room. He stumbled as he went, almost knocking over a side-table as he passed it, but managed to snatch up the radio unharmed. “Hello? Doctor?” Something crashed in the other room, and Polly came running in through the door, her hands still wet and her dress flecked with foam from the washing-up liquid. “Doctor, are ye there?”

It had been so long without a word from the Doctor that he had almost lost hope in hearing from him until after the rocket had landed – if he heard from him again at all. Anything could have happened, he had been telling himself firmly. They could have lost their radio, or the signal could have been shut off, or he could simply have been too busy to call them. Anything to stop himself from thinking about the possibility that the mission could have failed, and that the worst could have happened. That his darkest fears were true, and the Doctor had been hurt or even killed while he had been judged unfit to go along with him. But now he had heard the Doctor’s voice again, knew he was safe, and he squeezed the radio tighter as if he could wring more words out of it.

A long, agonising few seconds later, the tinny sound of the Doctor’s voice buzzed through the speakers again. “Jamie! There you are.”

“Doctor!” Jamie pressed the radio against his chest, closing his eyes in relief. His heart was still pounding so loudly that he wondered whether the Doctor could hear it. Behind him, Polly collapsed into a chair, her hands clasped tightly in her lap and her face a mixture of teary relief and tense expectation. “What happened? Where are ye?” He exchanged a glance with Polly. “Where’s Ben?”

“I’m here!” Ben’s voice echoed down the line, quieter than the Doctor’s, and Polly let out a strangled cry, pressing her hands over her mouth too late to muffle it.

“We’re on the rocket back,” the Doctor was saying over Ben’s exclamation. “Shouldn’t take us longer than a few hours to reach you now that the station is secure again. I _am_ sorry that we haven’t contacted you sooner -”

“You should’ve seen it, Pol,” Ben cut in. “It was a right mess up there.”

“What happened on your end?” the Doctor carried on. “The signal only cleared a few minutes ago.”

“We fixed things up a few days after you left,” Polly called over. “They arrested the professor, I read this morning that he’s going to plead guilty.” Ben and the Doctor were both speaking at once now, their already-muffled voices blending together. “Oh, can’t you two take turns?”

“Sorry, duchess,” Ben said, sounding a little chastised.

“But are ye both safe?” Jamie asked, holding the radio up against his mouth and swinging it away from Polly’s outstretched hands. She threw him a playful scowl and made another grab for it, and he leapt up out of his chair to avoid her, pacing across the room. “We’ve been worried sick.”

“He’s been pining,” Polly said happily.

Jamie covered the receiver hurriedly, but the Doctor was already laughing. “Has he, indeed,” he said. “Well, I’m rather flattered, Jamie.”

“I have _no’_ been -” Jamie swiped Polly away from the radio again. She danced out of his reach, grinning at him. “Aye, well.” He dropped his voice, glancing over his shoulder at Polly, though he knew she would hear him anyway. “Maybe a wee bit.”

“How charming. I’ve missed you too, you know.”

Through the interference, Ben was making gagging noises. “Ye know you’re just as bad, Ben.”

“I am not,” Ben protested. “When do I get to talk to Polly?”

“In a minute,” the Doctor insisted. There was a rustling noise, as if he too was fighting for control of his own radio. “Jamie picked up the radio, so I get to talk to him first.”

“Go on, then,” Ben said. “Two minutes.”

“Alright.”

With Polly safely if not entirely patiently seated again, Jamie settled down in a chair opposite hers. “Are ye sure you’re alright?”

“Yes, yes, quite sure. We had a bit of a scare yesterday -”

“What sort of scare?”

“Oh, nothing too serious. Just a close shave is all.”

Closing his eyes, Jamie let out a long breath. Just as he had done so many times that week, he replayed in his mind the Doctor and Ben’s departure in the rocket, and wished he could have convinced the captain that he ought to have gone with them. But it had been Ben who had passed the tests – Ben, with his navy training – and so it had been Ben who had won the last place on board the rocket. He did not resent him for it, and certainly did not envy him the discomfort of the trip, but not for the first time he felt a twinge of guilt at the memory of being told that he was not strong enough to go with them. And now here it was, the truth he had known was coming all along – that something had happened while they were on the space station, and he had not been there to make sure the Doctor was alright.

“Were ye hurt?” he asked, his voice low.

Even through the tenuous connection, the Doctor must have heard the seriousness in his voice, for he did not even attempt to joke around the question. “A little,” he said, equally softly. “Not too badly.”

“Can I see? When ye get back?”

“If it would – ah – set your mind at ease.”

“It would.”

Polly was reaching for the radio again, and he stood up, dancing away from her to earn himself a few extra seconds. “I’ll see ye soon, aye?”

“Very soon. Just a few hours from now.”

Jamie laughed. “Ye know that’s going to be the worst of it, right?”

“You’re one to talk. Go off and enjoy yourselves somewhere while you wait. We have to sit still until we get there.” The Doctor gave a disparaging sniff. “There’s not even in-flight entertainment.”

“Ye know I willnae be able tae think about anythin’ else.”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

“I’d best hand this thing over tae Polly.” Holding up his hand to keep her at arm’s length for a moment later, Jamie pressed the radio closer to his face to whisper into the receiver. “I love ye.”

Polly pulled a face at him, and he stuck his tongue out at her in return, so distracted that he almost missed the Doctor’s reply. “I love you too.”

“See ye tonight, then.”

Snatching the radio away as soon as Jamie so much as moved it away from his face, Polly skipped across the room, already chattering away happily to Ben. They were just as bad as himself and the Doctor, Jamie thought with a smile as he draped himself back over the chair. Only a few more hours, and he would see the Doctor again. Only a few more hours, and this whole business would be over, and they could leave, and he could forget that he had ever let the Doctor down.

Beneath the sound of Ben’s excited recounting of the events on the space station, he caught the Doctor’s last words. “I’ll look forward to it.”


	24. Magic

“Ah – Jamie, would you mind coming here for a moment?”

Startled, Jamie drew to a halt and glanced around the corridor. There were half a dozen doors around him, and sounds echoed so strangely in the TARDIS that he could not exactly pinpoint where the Doctor’s voice had come from. Glancing around himself, he caught sight of a door left ever so slightly ajar, letting warm light spill out through the crack and into the cold whiteness of the corridor. The Doctor had always claimed that the TARDIS hated doors being left open when nobody was inside. He certainly spouted a lot of nonsense, and Jamie was not entirely sure that he believed everything he said about his ship, but he could not deny that doors did have a habit of closing themselves, even – perhaps especially – when one was carrying something heavy between rooms.

Sure enough, he stepped closer to see the Doctor inside, settled on a sofa with his legs tucked underneath him. It looked to be one of the ship’s many – _entertainment rooms_ , the Doctor called them, as if any of them looked the slightest bit similar. The walls of this one were lined with shelves, bowed under the weight of books and boxes of all shapes and sizes and colours. Jamie stepped inside tentatively, searching every surface for one of those screens that had a habit of blaring to life when he least expected it. But there was no television, just a hissing old radio squeaking out half-coherent tunes.

The Doctor did not look up as he pushed the door open to pad inside, instead frowning down at the pack of cards in his hand. He shuffled a few, titled his head from side to side, and drew a card from the back, shaking his head.

“Tellin’ fortunes?” Jamie asked, settling himself down on the sofa opposite the Doctor’s.

“Nothing so mystical.” The Doctor looked up at him with pursed lips, but quickly broke into a smile. “No, I’m – well, never mind. I wanted to talk to you.”

Whatever it was, he sounded so _serious_ about it. Jamie hurriedly swallowed down the lump that had risen in his throat, flexing his hands to stop himself from clenching them. “Is everythin’ alright?” The Doctor had certainly been acting awfully strange around him lately, vanishing in the middle of conversations and forgetting what he had wanted to say and generally seeming – well, awkward was the only way to put it, Jamie supposed. Perhaps he had been fretting over needing to say something terrible. _Maybe he’s tired of me_ , he thought. _He’s going to tell me that he wants to drop me off at the next place we land, and I’ll never see any of them again_. The thought was so miserable that it almost did not bear dwelling on, but once it had taken form, he found he could not shake it off.

“Jamie?” The Doctor was watching him expectantly, eyebrows raised and lips slightly parted. “Are you quite alright?”

“Aye, aye, I’m fine.” Bear it with dignity, he told himself. “What did ye want tae tell me”

The Doctor was still looking at him funny, like he was trying to puzzle him out. “I just wanted to ask if you’re happy with us.”

The question should have set him at ease, but it only made Jamie’s heart pound faster. _He’s just working up to it. He’s toying with me_. Should he say no? Would it make it easier for the Doctor to say what he so obviously wanted to? For all his anxiety, he did not have it in him to lie. “Very happy.”

“I, ah, I know it must have been an odd few weeks,” the Doctor was carrying on, still shuffling his cards. “And I know it must have been quite a shock for you, at first. But I just wanted to – well, to see how you were doing.”

“Oh.” Jamie opened his mouth and closed it again, but no sound came out. “I’m doin’ fine,” he said at last, rather more hoarsely than he would have liked. “Ben an’ Polly have been -” He shrugged, wondering how to put into words Polly’s kindness in settling him into the TARDIS, or how Ben had half-flung himself down a cliff to help him after they had only known each other for a few hours. “Nice.” It hardly did justice to how much he liked them – or how much he liked the Doctor, for that matter – but it would have to do.

“Well, I’m very glad to hear it.” The Doctor held out a few cards towards him, fanned out between his fingers. “Pick a card, hm?”

Jamie took a red one, the one with the largest picture, though not without a little trepidation. Perhaps it was some sort of future-telling thing after all. Or some sort of test. Or a game of chance to help the Doctor make up his mind about whether or not to kick him out. “I got -”

“No, no, don’t tell me which one you picked.” Shoving the cards back into the rest of the stack, the Doctor reached into his sleeve. He rifled around up there for a moment, eyes going almost comically wide when he failed to find anything. “Mm. No, that’s not right. Here, give the card back.” Jamie’s nervousness was quickly growing into bafflement. He handed the card over slowly, wondering quite what the Doctor was getting at. “Thank you. Now...” Once again, the Doctor held out a second fan of cards. “Pick another.”

“Doctor...” Shrugging to himself, Jamie picked out a black card this time. “What’s all this about?”

“Oh, I was just checking in.”

“Oh.” Jamie stared down at the pair of little arrows on his card. “Ye didnae… want tae talk about anythin’ else?”

“Is there anything else?” The Doctor looked up from his cards, eyes narrowed in concern. “If there’s something you want to talk about -”

“No, no.” He was certainly acting even more oddly than usual, Jamie thought. Something particularly strange was going on. The Doctor had gone back to searching for something, this time down the sides of the sofa. “I just – I wondered if ye were goin’ tae tell me ye didnae want me around anymore.”

That made the Doctor drop his cards entirely. “Why on Earth would I want to tell you that?”

“Och, I don’t know. I just wondered, that’s all.”

“Jamie...” Shifting himself forwards to kneel on the floor, the Doctor reached across the table between them to press his hands over Jamie’s cheeks. The strangeness of it forced a short chuckle out of Jamie, but the Doctor’s face was so serious that it quietened him. His fingers were cold against Jamie’s skin, and he cradled him like he was something precious, and the feeling settled itself into Jamie’s bones and into the back of his throat. He wanted to press his hands over the Doctor’s, to hold him there and never have him let go, but he found himself frozen in place with terror at the thought of doing any such thing. “Jamie, I have very much enjoyed your company these past few weeks,” the Doctor was saying. At any other time, hearing those words would have made Jamie’s heart leap, but now he was almost too distracted to hear them. “And I would never ask you to leave unless you wanted to.” He tucked his upper lip inwards, chewing on the back of it. “That is – unless – you were saying that you wanted to leave.”

“No!” Jamie exclaimed. The Doctor jerked back with the shock of it, and he found himself unfrozen, hands shooting up to hold onto the Doctor’s as he had imagined. “No, I don’t want to – I’m _happy_ , here. With you.”

“Well.” Their eyes locked for just a moment too long, and the feeling that had come over Jamie was no longer settled but burning under his skin. “Well, then. I’m very glad about that.”

“Aye. Me too.”

Slowly, the Doctor drew his hand out from beneath Jamie’s, reaching behind his ear. His fingers brushed against his hair, and if Jamie had not felt like he was burning before, he was entirely ablaze now, cheeks red and mind emptied out and filled with static - “Your card, I believe.”

Blinking, he saw that the Doctor was holding out a card in front of him, and he reached up instinctively towards the back of his head, as if he could pull one out from there himself. “Ye were practicin’ magic tricks?”

“Well -” The Doctor ducked away from him, smiling coyly. “Perhaps I was.”

“Ye were just usin’ me tae practice.”

“Not entirely,” the Doctor protested. “I really did want to talk to you. But _is_ it the card you took from me?”

Grinning, Jamie held up the card he had picked earlier. The two cards swayed side by side as his hand bumped against the Doctor’s, arrows against hearts, red against black. “No.”


	25. Nest

Striding from one end of the room to the other, Jamie paused just beneath where the domed ceiling began to slope down to the floor, tapping at it to see if it would crumble away beneath his touch. From a distance it looked as if it were simply made of earth, and when they had first been ushered into the room his heart had leapt at the thought that they might simply tunnel out of there. But closer inspection had shown him that it was fused together somehow, hardened into an odd, plastic-like sheen, and he had yet to find a spot that might be weaker than the rest. Huffing to himself, he turned on his heel and headed off to examine a different spot.

“You might do better by walking the circumference,” the Doctor pointed out mildly, not looking up from the sheaf of paper in his hand.

“Eh?”

“All the way around the outside.” He raised one arm lazily, tracing out the ghost of the room in the air with the pen he held. “Pacing is so much harder in circular rooms, I always think.”

Not that he looked particularly interested in doing much pacing. He had deposited himself in the round hollow that passed for a bed almost as soon as the door had been closed behind them, and he had not moved from the spot since. “Aren’t ye gonnae help me find a way out?”

“I am helping.”

“No, you’re not, you’re -” Jamie squeezed his eyes closed, struggling to calm himself before he spoke again. If only the room had a window, he thought. Just one. Just enough for him to see how dark the sky was getting outside. “You’re just sittin’ there.”

The Doctor held up his sheet of paper. “I’m drafting a peace treaty.”

“You’re – what?”

“Drafting a peace treaty.” Finally abandoning the idea of digging his way out, Jamie flopped down beside the Doctor. It _was_ comfortable, he had to admit, to curl himself in a hollow filled with pillows and listen to the rustling of straw inside them. “That’s how we’re going to get out.”

“Ye can’t just -” Jamie shook his head. “Write a peace treaty an’ expect it to fix everythin’. Ye havenae even talked tae the ones who took Zoe.”

“That’s true.” Tapping the pen against his lip, the Doctor cast a glance over at the door. “I do wonder how she’s getting on. If only I could convince them to let us talk to her.”

“Assumin’ she’s alright enough tae talk to,” Jamie said darkly.

“Oh, Jamie.” The Doctor set his pen and paper aside. “I’m sure she’s quite alright.”

It had been just their luck, Jamie thought, to land on a planet that looked entirely uninhabited, only to find that there had been a war raging beneath the surface for a hundred years. If only they had stuck more tightly together, then Zoe would not have been left to wander across the invisible line, and she would not have been taken into one nest and them into another. The people had been pleasant enough to them, he supposed – it certainly made a chance to have someone believe them when they insisted they were not spies from the other side. But they seemed entirely disinterested in mounting a rescue party for Zoe, and the thought that she could have been hurt had been numbing enough to even carry Jamie through a bowl of the intensely sour broth they had been brought earlier.

“Why won’t they let us try an’ rescue her?” he asked at last. “We could rescue their people while we’re at it.”

It took a long moment for the Doctor to answer, and Jamie was struck by the unsettling thought that perhaps he did not know either. “I don’t think they understand the concept,” he said at last. “I think they’re something like – ants, on your Earth -”

“Aye, well, they look enough like them.”

“- and they have very little individuality, you see. They’re something of a hive mind. When one of them is captured, or – or -” He swallowed. “ _Dies_ , it’s more like an injury to a body than losing a friend. I suppose they’re more like a slime mould, in a way. Two colony organisms fighting back and forth and taking chunks off each other.”

“Oh, aye.” He had not thought that the Doctor could have said anything to make him feel worse, but strangely enough he had succeeded. And if their hosts really were unable to understand why they wanted Zoe back… “I’m startin’ tae think that idea of digging our way out was a good idea after all.”

“Well, you’re welcome to try, but I doubt you’ll get very far. That stuff’s stronger than reinforced steel, you know.”

“Hm.” Tilting his head back, Jamie stared up at the ceiling. “What is it, anyway? It doesnae look like anythin’ I’ve seen.”

“It’s a special compound they make out of dirt. They chew it up, you see – like your ants, again – and their saliva sticks it together. Like a sort of concrete.”

And he had been running his hands over it and everything. Surreptitiously, Jamie wiped his fingers against his kilt. “Oh.”

“Now, I’d rather like to get on with this draft.”

“Aye, alright.” Jamie lay back against the rim of the hollow, pulling a pillow out from beside him to hug it against his chest. The fabric of it was a thick-woven fibre, sharp and scratchy against his arms, but he ignored the discomfort to press on it harder. “Hey, Doctor?”

“Mm?”

“What if ye can’t just… fix things by writin’ up a peace treaty? What if it’s more complicated than that?”

The Doctor did not look up from his work, but his pen paused against the paper. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean.”

“Well...” Jamie trailed off, struggling to wrap his head around the conviction that had settled unbidden into his gut. “We’re always comin’ into these places an’ trying tae sort things out. An’ it’s alright when it’s just the Cybermen, or the Yeti, or somethin’, when there’s good an’ bad and we know which is which. But if Zoe’s bein’ treated just like how we are, how do we know where we stand?”

The Doctor smiled, but there was something disquieted in his eyes. “This isn’t a condemnation, you know, Jamie. It’s a compromise.”

“Aye, but – they’ve been fightin’ for a hundred years. It cannae be so simple that ye can just – drop in an’ fix it in five minutes. Doesnae matter how clever ye are. Maybe it’s worse if ye do think you’re clever, an’ you’re above all their problems.”

He had struck a nerve, he knew. The Doctor set aside the papers, picked them up again, and finally tossed them to the side. The pen went flying after them, scratching a long, black line across the scribbled words. “You’re quite right, of course,” he said – and he looked tired. Frighteningly tired. For all his frustrations, Jamie was beginning to wish he had not said anything. “I can’t fix everything.”

“I didnae mean it like that,” Jamie said, softly, awkwardly. “Just that – we rush intae places, an’ we rush out of them, an’ maybe we don’t really _get_ it, ye know?”

“Yes, I know. But – one has to try, doesn’t one?”

“Aye, ‘course.”

“And perhaps just a little bit of peace is enough, sometimes. Just for a moment. Just to make people stop and think.” The Doctor nodded, more to himself than to Jamie. “It isn’t always perfect – there was that time, with dear Dodo, and she had that cold...” He trailed off hurriedly. “Zoe first,” he said instead. “We’ll have them bring us Zoe, and then we can try and – _get_ it.”

“Aye, alright. Zoe first.” Shuffling over, Jamie picked up the pen and papers to hand them back to him. “So what were ye thinkin’?”


	26. Sunbeam

“It’s done.”

Startled, Jamie flailed his way back into sitting upright. He had been slouched over for so long that his back ached with the sudden change, and he yawned, blinking to bring his eyes back into focus. Only when he turned and found the Doctor standing behind him did he properly register that he had been spoken to. He had padded across the rooftop so quietly in his mismatched, dampened socks, coat clutched in one hand, shoes clutched in the other. He always looked so small without his coat, Jamie thought. So fragile.

“Is it fixed?” he asked, smothering another yawn.

“Yes, I do believe it is.” Jamie held his hand up to the Doctor, intending to pull him down to join him on the ground. He took it, but did not sit, instead pulling back on it just hard enough to hold them both in place. “They can go ahead with the festival and be none the wiser that someone tried to sabotage the power supply.”

“Or that we broke in,” Jamie said, grinning.

“Ah – well – yes.” Shifting his weight from one foot to the other, the Doctor tugged on Jamie’s hand, pulling him up until he was kneeling. “So I rather think we ought to – make ourselves scarce, as it were.”

Jamie glanced around them dubiously. The rooftop hardly looked well-trodden, covered in half-decayed leaves and pools of leftover rainwater as it was. They had almost been unable to reach it at all until the Doctor had pulled some funny little device out of his pockets to buzz the rust away from the trapdoor that led up to it. “Ye don’t really think they’ll find us up here, do ye?”

“Well – I suppose not. But we do have to take the elevator to get out of here, you know.”

“Och, it’ll be fine.” Dropping down to sit cross-legged again, Jamie tugged on the Doctor’s hand in return. “There’ll be lots of people around, ye said so yourself.”

“We’re not particularly inconspicuous.”

That was true enough, Jamie supposed. The both of them were still covered in grease and oil from the cogs they had been shuffling around, and the Doctor’s shirt sleeve had a long tear in it from where he had caught himself on a sharp piece of broken pipe.

“Don’t we have a wee bit of time?” he asked instead. “Ye don’t know for sure if it’s gonnae work, after all. We could just sit here an’ wait until the sun comes up.”

The Doctor looked up towards the horizon, taking in the rays of orange light that were already beginning to bleed into the deep purple of the sky. “Oh, alright. Just until we know the photoreceptors are hooked up properly.” He went to settle himself down beside Jamie, but paused, burying his fingers in his coat and sending creases running through the fabric.

“Come on, then,” Jamie said, squeezing his hand. “You’ll miss it.”

“Oh – yes.” Dropping down beside him with a soft _oof_ of effort, the Doctor draped his coat over Jamie’s shoulders.

He had done it so casually that Jamie was not sure whether it had been an act of affection or whether he was simply a glorified coat-hanger. Whatever the Doctor had intended, the simple motion warmed him in a way that he could not entirely chalk up to the new layer of wool draped around his shoulders. Turning his head a little, he opened his mouth to say something – but the Doctor was already staring at the sky, lips parted in expectation and rapture, and he leant over to rest his head against the Doctor’s shoulder instead.

The soft circle of orange at the horizon was broadening, its centre becoming tinged with yellow as the sun rose into view. Cradled in a sheltered valley, the houses spread out below them were still shrouded in darkness, but the higher land around them was slowly being bathed in light, wide open plains turning gold and forests almost seeming to be set ablaze. From the tower’s vantage point atop a mountain, the whole landscape looked both impossibly vast and like some child’s toy sketched out in miniature. Jamie leant forwards as the first sunbeams inched their way down the valley, clutching at the railing before him. The droplets of water that hung from it shook and dripped at the impact of his grasp, falling into his lap and running in rivulets down his arms. The shock of of it made him shiver, though he paid it no mind. He thought of the festival, and of the excitement of the people at the promised fireworks, and he wondered how whatever show was in store could possibly match up to the grandeur of all this. Somehow he doubted it could – though he wondered if he would feel quite the same were it not for the Doctor kneeling beside him, sharing his awe in the early morning quiet.

It took an age for the light to even reach the base of their mountain, and another for it to reach the tower, but he waited for it with bated breath even as it crept over them. When at last it reached them on the roof, beginning to fall onto the great wing-shapes of the photoreceptors that crested the pinnacle, the Doctor leapt to his feet, laughing and shouting out his excitement.

“Look!” he cried, pointing up to the wings. “Look, they’re working!” Sure enough, green lights were springing into life across the intricate mess of circuitry that covered each one of them. A few moments later, they creaked into motion, rising up to meet the sun like great, iridescent flowers. “We fixed it!”

Below them, the tower was beginning to awaken. A hum had started beneath their feet, and if Jamie listened closely he could hear the gentle, tired murmur of the first workers arriving on the top floor, pushing open the doors to the power rooms. He could only hope that they had closed everything up convincingly enough – and that his earlier certainty that nobody set foot on the roof held true.

“We should go,” he murmured, touching the Doctor’s back to draw his attention away from the photoreceptors.

Stepping back into Jamie’s grasp, the Doctor looked down, taking in the same sounds that had brought Jamie back to reality. “Ah. Yes, we should, shouldn’t we.” He made to stride off towards the trapdoor, but paused, glancing down at the shoes he still held in one hand. “You know,” he added as he struggled to shove them on again, “I do think we might have left it a little late.”

“We’ll be fine,” Jamie insisted – but the tower sounded so busy that he could not say it with any great conviction. “It’s no’ like there’s another way down.”

“Well, we could always tie a rope to the spire and lower ourselves down that way -”

“No, thank ye.”

“Hm.” Taking his coat back from Jamie, the Doctor shrugged it on, fussing over the arm that concealed his torn shirt sleeve. “I don’t suppose they’d believe us if we explained what we were doing.”

“What, fixin’ things up? They’d probably think we broke it in the first place.”

“No, no.” Glancing over his shoulder, the Doctor grinned at him. “Watching the sunrise.”


	27. Cute

“You two are so cute together!”

“Eh?”

The girl before him sighed, rolling her eyes and tossing her hair back. “You and the Doctor! How long have you been married?”

“Um.” Glancing around the room, Jamie let her words wash over him. He had only meant to part with the Doctor for a moment, himself going to fetch their tea while the Doctor found them somewhere to sit in the crowded hotel cafe. But this girl had recognised them from yesterday’s dinner, and she had been chattering away to him for far too long, and the Doctor would surely be wondering -

The realisation of exactly what she had said crashed over him, knocking the breath from his lungs.

“Eh?” he wheezed.

“The Doctor told me,” she explained eagerly, clasping her hands together. “Last night. He was a bit embarrassed by it, I thought. Newlyweds, are you?”

“Um,” Jamie said again. Any thoughts of staying inconspicuous, of finding the Doctor, and most certainly of getting them cups of tea had been wiped out of his mind, leaving him a blank slate inscribed only with the word _married_. Why the Doctor would have told her that he did not know, and he wondered for a moment if she could have been dreaming. But perhaps the Doctor had some plan, and it would not do for him to blunder in and ruin it. “That’s right,” he said vaguely, long since having forgotten exactly what she had said, and hoping he was answering the right question. Through the crowds, he at last caught sight of the Doctor, and his heart leapt. “I need tae go an’ talk to him, would ye mind if I -”

“Oh, no, not at all!” She skipped aside, but only succeeded in blocking his path to the booth where the Doctor sat. It was secluded, one of the few that could be partitioned off from the rest of the cafe with sliding doors. Romantic, even, a horrid little voice at the back of Jamie’s mind whispered, and he could have collapsed on the spot from the shuddery panic that the thought threw over him. He nodded to the girl as he ducked around her, but stopped just short of the booth, pulling a map out of his pocket to pretend to examine it.

What on Earth had the Doctor been thinking? And why could he himself not pass it off as a simple game of make-believe, an open-and-shut case that would only last until they managed to swipe those documents? He was taking this far too seriously, he told himself sternly. For whatever reason, the Doctor was pretending, that was all. It was hardly as if it was a _real_ marriage.

It was the word that was the problem. He had never seriously thought about being married. Of course, he had _imagined_ , as a child – but the more he had grown, the more he had found other things to worry himself with, and the more it had seemed something for a far-off future that never grew any closer. Always in a few years, and then always after the war. After they were safe again. And always after he had found the right girl, of course. He knew perfectly well why that had never quite happened, but he had always stopped just short of putting a name to it.

Now, of course, Polly had made it eagerly and abundantly clear to him why that might be, as soon as she had caught a whiff of him being less than inclined towards girls. And it was a good thing, too, else he might have skipped the panic and gone straight for heart failure upon hearing that people thought he was married to the Doctor. No, the problem was not the idea of being married to another man – though it was hardly as if the Doctor was a man, exactly. Quite what he was, he was sure he would never know, but he was not a man from Earth, that was for sure. And yet – he was not a lassie, either. But if he was entirely honest with himself, it was that for all Polly’s gentle prodding and careful explanations, he was still not _sure_. For years, he had been waiting for the real thing to come along. Something more than _oh, remember the lad a couple of villages over, he had nice eyes and was good with horses_ , or _wasn’t there that one time in Inverness, we passed a good-looking boy in the street_ , something undeniably more than the passing isn’t-he-handsome thought that he had assumed everyone had. Something he could think back on and say _yes, I know what the other lads meant when they talked about girls, now_. But underneath it all, deep down and long since well-buried, was the unshakeable worry that the real thing would never come along at all, and he would be left waiting and wondering and doubting himself.

Whatever he thought he was waiting for, he told himself sternly, he would have to keep waiting. And whatever meaning he was reading into this was equally silly. And yet for the Doctor to ask him to pretend like this still struck at the parts of himself he had hollowed out and ignored.

“Jamie!” He could have leapt a mile at the sound of the Doctor’s voice. Perhaps his thoughts had been written all over his face as clear as anything, and the Doctor would know exactly what had paralysed him. But he looked as calm as when he had left him, tucked in one corner of the booth. Jamie dragged himself over towards him, stomach churning, and crammed himself into the opposite side, as far away as he could manage. “What happened to our tea?”

“Oh.” His mind was far too slow and sluggish for this. “Tea.”

“Yes, well. Nevermind.” The Doctor tugged the map out of Jamie’s hands, spreading it out on the table. “Now, I do think it would be a little – ah – on-the-nose, shall we say, to ask for a proper plan of this place, so we’ll just have to make do with – Jamie, are you listening to me?”

“Hm?” Jamie had taken up the edge of the map, worrying its tip back and forth until he had creased it. “Aye, I am.”

“No, you’re not.” Sitting back, the Doctor folded his arms over his chest. “What’s wrong?”

“ _Nothing_. Someone just told me somethin’ funny, that’s all.”

“Oh?” He looked so expectant, like he was waiting for Jamie to tell him an actual joke. “What sort of thing?”

“She said...” The weight in his stomach shot up into his throat as he started to speak, and he wondered if his heart might give out entirely if he gave voice to it. “She said ye told her we were married.”

“Oh!” The Doctor laughed, and Jamie wondered if it really was all some joke to him. Try as he might, he could not see what would possibly be funny about it. But when he listened a little closer, the Doctor sounded more embarrassed than amused, colour creeping into his cheeks. “Yes, I, hm – I thought we might seem a little more harmless if people thought we were newlyweds on holiday.”

“Ye can’t -” Lunging across the table, Jamie snatched up the Doctor’s hand, shaking it up and down for emphasis. “Ye can’t just go around telling people we’re married.”

Realising what he had done, he whisked his hand away. The Doctor had jerked away in the same moment – and was that a touch of wistfulness in his expression? “Oh, I realise I should have told you first – but I thought it was a good cover story,” he said. “And we’d have been sharing a room anyway.”

It was truly a miracle that Jamie’s heart did not stop entirely at that. “But we’re no’ married!”

“I’m quite aware of that, of course, but do keep your voice down. They don’t need to know that.” The Doctor tilted his head to one side, and _oh_ , if that had not gone and made everything worse. Jamie could never say no to that face. “Unless the idea is that unpleasant to you. Oh – oh, dear, I -” His eyes widened. “I simply forgot, that in your time -”

“No!” Jamie exclaimed. “No, no, it’s no’ that.”

Briefly, he wondered if he should tell the Doctor exactly what it was that bothered him. But when he tried to pin it down, it split into a thousand different problems. It was that it had been such a shock – no, it had been that it was just a little too close to what he had never let himself want – no, it was that it was the _Doctor_ he would be pretending with, of all people.

Better not to tell him, he thought eventually. No need to bother him. “It’s no’ that,” he repeated, more softly this time.

“Oh.” The Doctor clasped his hands together in his lap. “So – do you – oh, I am sorry, Jamie, it isn’t any of my business.”

“It’s alright.” Some deep instinct made him open his mouth again, ready to say _yes_ – but he hesitated as he went to say it, wondering if he was really allowed to call it anything more than a _maybe_ , when he was still waiting. Or a _yes, but not how I’ve always been told people mean it_. A _yes, but I’m sure I’m missing something_.

“Jamie...” With a start, he realised that the Doctor was frowning at him. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. If you’d rather I passed it off as a joke and we forgot the whole business -”

“I told her we were,” Jamie interrupted him. “I think we’re a wee bit past that.”

“Oh.”

“Aye.”

Slowly, tentatively, the Doctor reached across the table to take his hand again. Jamie almost leapt back in surprise, but he held himself carefully still, watching his fingers twitch back and forth like they were trying to decide whether to hold the Doctor’s hand properly. “In that case...” The Doctor shuffled along the seat, sliding himself closer to Jamie. “That is, if you’re quite comfortable with it -” He glanced through the doors of their booth. “I think you ought to kiss me.”

Jamie’s breath caught in the back of his throat, heavy and sharp, and he choked on it. By the time he had recovered from his coughing fit, his eyes were watering, and he could do nothing but whisper out a hoarse, “what?”

The Doctor jerked his head towards the rest of the cafe. “Because of them.” A cluster of tall figures were weaving their way through the crowds, shoving at those who stumbled into their path and looming over those they stopped to talk to. “ _Inquirers_. They must suspect something.”

“Ye don’t think -” Any terror Jamie had felt at the idea of pretending to be the Doctor’s husband had drained out of him, chased away by his blood turning to ice at the sight of the Inquirers. “Ye don’t think they know we -”

“I don’t know if they suspect us, no. But I doubt they’d bother to disturb a couple of newlyweds, well – _canoodling_ in here, so -”

Before his nerve could give out, Jamie leant in and kissed him quiet.

He did not like admitting to himself that he had thought about kissing the Doctor – and enjoyed still less the knowledge of how often he had thought about it. Whatever he had imagined, it was not this, with the Doctor’s hands flapping at his sides like he was trying to figure out what to do with them, and the corner of the table knocking into his chest, and himself moving the wrong way and bumping his nose into the Doctor’s cheeks. But he moved closer to sit beside him properly, curling his legs up onto the seat, and the Doctor settled his hands on his waist, and every time they bumped against each other they broke apart for a second to laugh. And laughing with the Doctor was the easiest thing he had ever done. Only when his mind had recovered enough to process exactly what he was doing did he pull away for good, trailing his hands reluctantly over the Doctor’s sides as he leant back.

“Ye know,” he said, his voice not as steady as he would have liked, “we could’ve just closed the doors.”

“Ah.” The Doctor glanced towards them. “Well, I – hm. I didn’t think of that.”

Surely, he thought, surely he was imagining the Doctor’s entirely disarmed expression. It had been an entirely sensible distraction. There was no meaning to it whatsoever.

And yet – the Doctor had a talent for taking his world and turning it on its head until he wondered why he had ever seen it any other way. He had been watching and waiting for so long, wondering when things would finally click into place. And they _had_ – but not quite in the shape he had expected. He had never needed to wait, because whatever great realisation he had been waiting for would never come. Maybe, he thought, seizing upon the thought as desperately as if he were drowning and it was keeping him afloat, maybe there was no real thing but this. Just to kiss the Doctor again, and again, and again. And that would be enough. More than enough, if he was honest with himself. The thought buoyed him up into laughter and tumbled over him like a wave and held him like a calm sea, and there was a sort of peace in it, in thinking that he was whole.

Only – and this was the terrible and unavoidable fact – it was the Doctor he was feeling something for.

_Oh._

Oh, no.

This was going to be harder than he had thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's my october writing challenge and I get to choose the projection
> 
> but no in all seriousness this was a really tough fic to write. I think I've been trying to write it for years now and it just so happened to come to me for this. it was meant to be just a simple fake married fic but ace!jamie is a hc I've had for a long time so I was like, well, how would a fake married situation play into an intersection of being gay + being ace + being from a time without as much room to explore that. yes I am trying to justify this fic bc I'm shy abt posting it <3
> 
> also apparently it's ace awareness week this week. coincidental but hey, there it is.


	28. Dance

“Oof!” Collapsing into the chair beside him, Polly tugged at the collar of her dress to fan herself with it. Jamie leant towards her, relaxing into her company as she turned her head to flash him a bright smile. Of the four of them, she was the only one who seemed entirely comfortable with such a fancy party, and he felt less out of place beside her glittery splendour, as if her presence justified his own. “Isn’t this fun?” she asked, apparently oblivious to his stiff discomfort. “It’s been so long since I’ve been to a party like this.”

Jamie shrugged. “’S alright. I wonder where the Doctor’s got to?”

“Five minutes ago he said he was going to get drinks, but I think a couple of the children dragged him away to dance with them instead.”

Despite himself, Jamie grinned. “Aye, that sounds about right.” He lapsed into silence again, watching the dancers twirl like so many gems set into the gilded background of the hall. “The lassie ye were dancin’ with seemed… nice.”

Polly shot him a curious glance. “I can see if I can find her again, if you wanted to ask her to dance yourself.”

Alarm prickled at the hairs on the back of Jamie’s neck. “No – no! I was just sayin’, ye know.”

“Oh.” She looked almost crestfallen. Scanning the crowd, she dragged her eyes from the dancers to the clusters of people sitting as they were on the sidelines or clustered around the buffet tables. “Is there anyone you’d like to -”

“No,” Jamie said firmly. “These fancy types, they’re no’ really for me.”

“Suit yourself.” Polly settled back into the chair, folding her arms and crossing her legs. She bit back a smile as she watched Ben be whisked past them, all but lifted off the ground by his much taller and much more exuberant partner. “Who is for you, then?”

“ _Polly_!”

She held up her hands in surrender, laughing. “I’m just asking.”

He had promised himself before the party, quite firmly, that he would not accept an invitation to dance from anyone. Aside from one person, that was – though nothing in the world could convince him to admit that to Polly. It was a pointless promise, anyway, he told himself bracingly. There was no risk of him being asked, and so no need for him to stand by it. “I’m no’ going to – _embarrass_ myself by dancin’ with anyone,” he said instead, rather more weakly than he had intended.

“Have it your way, then.” She craned her neck to see past the dancers. “But you will tell me what you think of some of them, won’t you?”

Jamie sighed. “Go on, then.”

She grinned, like a cat closing in on a mouse. “Him, over there, in the green suit?” Jamie wrinkled his nose. “What, don’t you think he’s handsome?”

“He’s alright lookin’, I ‘spose. But a couple of minutes ago I saw him bump into a waitress an’ yell at her for spillin’ his drink.”

Polly pulled a face. “I see what you mean. What about him, next to that big palm tree?”

“Looks like he forgot his necktie ‘cause he was too busy powderin’ his face.”

“Tough customer, eh?”

At last, Jamie threw her a wry smile. “Back home, when I used tae go up to the big house an’ play for the laird an’ his guests – I used tae stand there an’ watch all those fancy lords an’ ladies and think things like that tae myself.” His smile widened into a proper grin. “I’d not have been half-bored, otherwise.”

“Kirsty seemed nice,” Polly protested. “Was her father not the same?”

“Aye, he was. No’ nice enough that I wanted tae give his tacksman the good stuff when he came collectin’, mind. But we were well off.”

Polly burst out laughing at that. “I think most of these people are much worse than he was, then.” She leant back in her seat, hooking her elbows behind the back of it and flicking her wrist towards another one of the guests. “What about them?”

Jamie stuck his tongue out at her. “Too many tentacles,” he said. “An’ just a wee bit too blue.”

Before Polly could reply, the Doctor came bobbing and weaving through the crowd towards them, the edge of a plate clutched tightly to his chest to hold it steady. He squeezed past one cluster of party-goers, waded through another, and at last flopped down into a chair beside Jamie’s, mopping at his brow with his handkerchief.

“Those children,” he huffed, “are the most rascally bunch that I have ever met.” Holding out the plate, he handed a tiny glass first to Polly, then to Jamie, who held it up towards the light curiously. The liquid inside was dark blue, swirling with silver sparkles and golden stars. “It’s called Ytchka.”

“Eh?”

“Ytchka.” The Doctor took his own glass, holding the rim delicately between his forefinger and thumb. “Rather delicious, but extremely potent. Any more than this and you’ll dance uncontrollably ‘til dawn.” He downed it in one gulp. “Or humans will, anyway.” Jamie copied him, wincing at the acrid burn that slid down his throat as he swallowed it. An odd popping sensation filled his skull, like his brain was full of soap bubbles, and he shook his head to clear it. “You two seem to be having a good time.”

“I was trying to find him a dance partner,” Polly said, loud enough that Jamie’s cheeks burned red. “I suggested them -” She jerked her head towards the tentacled guest. “But Jamie wasn’t so sure.”

“I see.” The Doctor poked at his cheek with one finger, eyeing the alien appraisingly. “Well, they’re quite the model of Quixos-Third’s beauty standards, I’ll say that much. They’d be considered quite a catch in at least seven star systems, Jamie.”

Polly’s face lit up with mirth and delight, even as Jamie buried his face in his hands. “You should ask them!”

“Polly, I can’t even dance. No’ like this, at least.”

“Oh, that hardly matters!” the Doctor put in cheerfully. “Ah – between ourselves, I wouldn’t consider myself a particularly accomplished dancer, either. But it doesn’t matter, so long as you enjoy yourself.”

“Half an hour ago you made the whole party panic when you elbowed that ambassador in the face,” Polly reminded him. “I wouldn’t say you’re the best advertisement for dancing, you know.”

“Yes, well -” The bravado drained out of the Doctor’s face. “I suppose that _has_ put something of a dampener on my dance card.” He sat in silence for a moment, tapping his fingers together, then jerked upright to hold out his hand to Jamie. “What if I saved you the trouble of asking, and asked you myself?”

_Oh._

He ought to have been pleased, he knew. One dance would satisfy Polly enough to stop her from suggesting partners – and he _had_ made a promise to himself, after all. His earlier excuses were crumbling away like dust even as he tried to clutch at them. The Doctor was no fancy gentleman or daunting stranger, just a friend who he knew would not laugh at his clumsiness when he inevitably tripped over himself. Just a friend, he repeated. Just a friend.

But he had made that promise with the belief that the Doctor was the last person who would ask him for a dance. It had been a joke, or so he had told himself. And now here he was, watching Jamie with wide, expectant eyes, hand still held out in invitation. All he had to do was take it. Perhaps it was the effects of the drink kicking in, or the prickling discomfort of Polly’s eyes on him, but he pushed himself out of his chair to take the Doctor’s hand. Whatever was making him do it, it was against his better judgement, that was for sure. And yet there was excitement mixed in with the nervousness churning in his stomach.

“Aye,” he said, pulling the Doctor to his feet. “Aye, why not?”


	29. Treat

The sun peeked out from between a chink in the clouds, casting a beam of bright light over the hilltops. Half-stunned by it, the Doctor screwed up his face against the discomfort, but quickly relaxed back against the stone he was nestled into, letting the heat of it warm his eyelids and feeling it seep into his skin. It had been such a dark day that he had wondered earlier if their picnic would be spoiled by rain, and they would be left to limp back into town muddied and dishevelled. But the weather had been kind to them, in the end, having done little more than spit a few drops of water over the heath they had waded through to reach the foothills – and now, to top it all off, the sun was out.

Just as his mind started to creep towards a warm sort of unconsciousness, he snapped his eyes open. His eyelids were heavy, protesting against the disturbance, but the sight that greeted him was more than enough to compensate. Jamie was still standing atop the next hill over from him, one hand resting on his hip and the other shielding his eyes against the glare. The Doctor tracked the motion of his head as he surveyed the slope that ran down before him, following the line of it from the open fields of scraggly brush to the sparse forest of wind-twisted trees and then to the choppy ocean beyond. A few boats bobbed against the horizon, all but blurred out by mist and sea-spray, and Jamie rocked in rhythm with them for a moment before turning to survey the mountains behind them. The Doctor was far too comfortable as he was to bother twisting his head around to see them, so he kept his eyes fixed on Jamie instead, watching the wind play with the ties on his shirt, the way one leg was bent to shift his weight onto the other side.

At length, Jamie came jogging back down again, skidding on the dampened earth to slide to a halt on the rocky outcrop where their picnic rug was spread out. “It’s a good spot for a picnic,” he said breathlessly, twirling a small yellow blossom from one of the bushes between his fingers. “I like it here.”

“Mm.” Slowly, luxuriously, the Doctor rolled himself into an unhurried stretch, letting it run from his shoulders down to the tips of his toes. It was so easy to spend so much time hunched over, in front of wiring or books or the half-finished sonic device on his desk that still needed welding. Warm stone was just what he had needed to loosen himself up a little. “So do I.”

“So.” Flopping down beside him, Jamie tucked his flower behind the Doctor’s ear before rifling through the emptied picnic basket to pick out a few stray crumbs. He surveyed his findings ruefully, but shrugged and licked his fingers anyway. “What’s the catch?”

“Hm?”

“Ye know, why you’ve really brought me here.”

Panic jolted through the Doctor, pulling the electricity out of every nerve network in his body to paralyse him. He had been so _careful_ – there was no way that Jamie could have known - “Does there have to be a reason?”

“Aye, ‘course there does. It’s not every day we get tae go somewhere nice without somethin’ bad happenin.” The Doctor all but deflated at that, flopping back boneless and relieved against the rocks. Beside him, Jamie settled into a nook of his own, just close enough to reach out and press his hand over the Doctor’s own. “So what’re ye up to this time?”

“I’m not up to anything,” the Doctor squeaked out. “it’s just – a treat, that’s all. That is to say – I _did_ pick up on some odd energy readings around here, the other day. Just – ah – a mild abnormality, that’s all. Nothing to worry about.” That ought to throw him off the scent, he thought with a touch of satisfaction. No need to mention the fact that he had eliminated the possibility of them being dangerous yesterday, just as a precaution.

Jamie was still eyeing him doubtfully. “Ye an’ Victoria have been runnin’ all over the place without me since we came here, whisperin’ an’ giving each other – _looks_. There’s somethin’ going on that you’re not tellin’ me about.”

“No, no,” the Doctor said hastily. “Everything’s quite normal.”

Dipping his free hand into his pocket, he closed his fingers around the box he had stowed away there. Of course, he could always just pull it out now, open it and explain everything to Jamie. It was a really rather simple explanation, after all – and then they would laugh about it. When he put it that way, it all sounded so easy. And of course Victoria had been so helpful, coming with him to find just the right thing, and arranging for everything to be _just so_. She had been so eager to help that he could almost have believed that it had been her who had kept the weather so favourable, just through sheer force of will. It would hardly do for him to go trailing back home after everything and tell her that he had lost his nerve.

And yet… She had told him time and time again that of _course_ Jamie would say yes. That asking the question was really rather more of a formality than anything. That Jamie was the one to whom it would really matter. But there was still something itching away at the back of his mind, wondering if Jamie would _really_ want this, or if he would be scared off by the mere prospect of… well. Something so binding.

Gritting his teeth and fixing his eyes on the horizon, he wrapped his fingers more tightly around the box. In just a moment he would pull his hand out of his pocket and show the thing to Jamie. He would flip the top and hold it out and he would say – what, exactly? He was sure he had planned it all out not an hour ago, but everything he had wanted to say had vanished. Perhaps he should have written notes. And besides, as poor as his understanding of these sorts of human rituals remained, even he knew that the shape of it was not quite right. Jamie was sitting beside him, quiet and placid with after-lunch sleepiness. Doing it now would be devoid of any sort of romantic excitement. Surely the right thing to do would be to surprise him.

But then again, they had far too much excitement in their lives already. Perhaps the way to go about it would be like this, slow and measured and thoughtful, a little oasis of calm that they could think back on fondly. Yes, that was it. In just a moment – he jerked his arm, but his hand did not make it out of his pocket. Clearing his throat, he shook himself and tried again. Yes – in just a moment, he would -

“You’re sure nothin’s going to happen?”

Startled, he dropped the box again, feeling the vibration of it clattering its way back into the jumble of other items that filled his coat. “Hm?”

“Ye know, that nothin’ dangerous is gonnae happen.” Jamie was inching his way down the picnic blanket, sprawling out on his stomach with his legs kicked into the air and his head pillowed on his arms. “’Cause if you’re so sure, I’d like tae take a nap before we go tae that spring ye talked about.”

“Ah.” Thankfully, the box was still sitting on top of everything, not lost in the mess. He really ought to clean it out, one of these days. But maybe now was the time to ask the question, he thought. He could surprise Jamie with it when he awoke. Perhaps that was the best of both worlds. Or – yes, when Jamie stood up to head off, he would turn around to see why he was not following, and find him kneeling there - “You’re quite alright,” he said at last. “I can assure you, I had no – ah – ulterior motive in bringing us here.” Only one of Jamie’s eyes was visible, but he could read his sceptical expression as clearly as anything. “Ah – other than those energy readings. As I said. But it’s quite safe.”

“If you’re sure.” Jamie’s words were muffled, mumbled into the blanket. “Wake me in a wee while, aye? Just a couple of minutes.”

“Alright.” At least now he had a few minutes to spend steeling his nerves.

When he was sure that Jamie’s eyes were closed, he pulled the box out of his pocket, flipping open the top to study the ring inside.


	30. Glow

_A large rose-tree stood near the entrance of the garden: the roses growing on it were white, but there were three gardeners at it, busily painting them red. Alice thought this a very curious thing, and she went nearer to watch them, and just as she came up to them she heard one of them say, “Look out now, Five! Don’t go splashing paint over me like that!”_

Something across the room was letting out an ear-piercing whine.

Tucking his finger in between the pages to mark his place and folding the book closed around it, Jamie squeezed his eyes shut, scrunching his face up against the sound. It carried on regardless, the screech of metal on metal reverberating strangely in his teeth, an itch he would never be able to scratch. He turned his head to watch the gentle glow of the fireplace, trying to tune into the gentle crackle of the flames and following the embers as they vanished up into the chimney. Idly, he wondered where they went – if they were spat out into some other part of the TARDIS, or into space, or if they simply vanished. The thought was enough to dull the whining sound, and he opened the book again, scanning laboriously across the page until he found where he had left off.

_“I couldn’t help it,” said Five, in a sulky tone; “Seven jogged my elbow.”_

_On which Seven looked up and said, “That’s right, Five! Always lay the blame on others!”_

_“You’d better not talk!” said Five. “I heard the Queen say only yesterday you deserved to be beheaded!”_

He was distantly aware of the whining fading away, replaced by a soft shuffling and mumbling. Halfway across the room from where he lay on the floor, the Doctor was bobbing his head backwards and forwards over his desk like some great bird inspecting its eggs, tapping at the crumpled ball of metal before him to make it roll over. Grinning to himself, Jamie hooked one leg over the arm of the sofa and stared at the page in front of him. But it was slipping away, the sentences melting together until he did not know whether the book was full of strange words or his ability to grasp them had vanished. It could go either way with this book, he supposed – but this time it was sure to be his own distraction that was making it hard to read.

As if on cue, the Doctor spoke up. “What are you reading?”

“ _Alice in Wonderland_.” Jamie held up the book as the Doctor turned and glanced at the cover. “Victoria said I should read it.”

“Mm.” The Doctor leant over his desk, then sprung back when its contents let out a spray of sparks. “Do you like it?”

“Aye, well enough. It’s a wee bit confusing sometimes.” A smile threatened to spill over Jamie’s face, and he bit his lip to hide it as he watched the Doctor rummage through his drawers to pull out a pair of scratched and scorched goggles. “I think we’ve seen stranger things, though.”

“I suppose that’s the way of it, when one travels as much as we do.” There was that whirring noise again, loud enough that the Doctor was almost shouting over it. “You think nothing could surprise you. But then – the universe has its ways, somehow.’

“Aye. Like those chaps with two heads we met the other week.”

“Good gracious, yes.” The Doctor sat back from his work, a thoughtful smile flickering across his face. “Didn’t they just think the world of themselves.”

“No’ so much as those fish lads from that space station.”

“Ah, well, they’ve got a reputation to uphold, the scientists of the Icht. Most of them aren’t quite so bad.” Leaning towards Jamie, the Doctor lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, as if to stop the Icht themselves from hearing him. “They don’t like me any better, though. I rather think they’ve always found me a little too – _avant-garde_ for their tastes.”

Laughter threatened to bubble up into Jamie’s throat, and he struggled to bite it back down before he dared to open his mouth. “I wonder why.”

For all his best efforts, he could not keep the amusement out of his voice, and the Doctor turned back to his desk with an only slightly over-emphasised _harrumph_. Smiling to himself, Jamie opened his book again, propping it open on his knees. But his eyes slid over the words without comprehension, running back over the same line once – twice – three times. He frowned at the page, straining to grasp the words, but each one slipped away from him as he moved on to the next. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of the Doctor chewing thoughtfully on the end of his pencil. The fragmented focus he had managed to scrape together faded away from him at the sight, little more than mist in the bright sunlight of the Doctor’s familiar mannerisms, and he sighed, setting the book aside softly. Carrying on reading would do no good.

The Doctor was threading a thick needle now, tongue caught between his teeth in concentration. He huffed out a few complaints under his breath when the thread slipped away from the eye, its edge visibly fraying even from across the room, until at last he cast thread and needle aside to pick up the whirring tool again. “Bored?”

“Eh?”

“Of your book.”

“Oh.” Jamie’s cheeks flooded with heat. “I couldnae concentrate, with ye makin’ all that racket.”

“You don’t have to stay here, you know.” Glancing over his shoulder, the Doctor cast his eyes over where Jamie lay. The corner of his mouth twitched with amusement. “You certainly don’t look particularly comfortable.”

He must look a sight, Jamie thought, sprawled out on his back with his legs stuck up onto the sofa in front of him. Still, he had seen the Doctor contort himself into less comfortable positions – and sleep like that, no less. “I like it here.”

“Well, I’m certainly not complaining.” The Doctor raised his eyebrows, his expression a picture of perfect innocence but for the mirth sparkling in his eyes. “Though I certainly don’t see what’s so interesting about watching me.” His amusement spilled over into his face and his laughter as Jamie spluttered out excuses, cheeks burning. “I do have eyes, you know.”

“Not in the back of your head, ye don’t,” Jamie retorted. Something about having been caught in the act filled him with the warmth of embarrassment, as if looking at the Doctor for too long was still a luxury he did not allow himself to indulge in. It was still a strange feeling, even after months of settling into the habit, to watch and be watched in return without fearing what might happen if he was discovered. “Anyway, it’s not like you’ve not done worse.”

“Ah – well – yes, I suppose so.” The Doctor ducked away from Jamie’s gaze, turning hurriedly back to his gadgets. “ _’Tis love that makes the world go round, after all_.”

“Don’t ye go getting all sappy, now.”

“Mm? Oh, no -” The Doctor nodded towards Jamie’s book, still discarded on the floor beside him. “It’s a quote. You mustn’t have reached it yet.”

“Oh.” Reaching out without turning his head, Jamie fumbled around for the book. His fingers bumped up against it after a moment of searching, and he scrabbled for purchase on its spine to lift it up. “Maybe I’ll find it if I keep reading, eh?” The Doctor mumbled his agreement, already hunched over his desk, and Jamie opened the book again, grinning to himself.

_“What for?” said the one who had spoken first._

_“That’s none of your business, Two!” said Seven._

_“Yes, it is his business!” said Five, “and I’ll tell him—it was for bringing the cook tulip-roots instead of onions.”_

There was that whirring sound again, as loud as ever. Jamie gritted his teeth, fixing his eyes on the page determinedly, but the words still slid stubbornly on past him. Despite himself, he leant his head over to glance past the book towards the Doctor. Just a quick peek, he told himself, to see what he was up to. He was holding a scrap of metal up towards the light, tongue caught between his teeth in concentration -

“Yes, Jamie?”

“Nothin’!”


	31. Rest

It was oddly warm, in the draughty little room they had hidden themselves away in. He could have sworn that only minutes before it had been freezing – but perhaps then all the heat had been draining out of him to fill the air instead, and now it was soaking back into him. Or perhaps the cluster of candles spread across the desk had finally grown hot enough to warm things up. Or maybe it was just that he was so tired, his eyes drifting closed against the flickering of the candlelight over the pages before him. Surely, he thought, surely it would be alright for him to close his eyes. Just for a moment. Not even to put his head down, but just to get the heaviness in his eyelids out of his system, and then he would feel fresh and awake again.

The Doctor put his hand on his shoulder, making him jerk back just as his head started to tip forwards. “Are you quite alright, Jamie?”

Shaking his head and blinking, Jamie stared down at the quill in his hand. It had scratched against the parchment as he had leant forwards, leaving a long, black streak through his painstaking rows of tally marks. “Och, _no_ -”

“It’s alright.” Easing the offending page out from under Jamie’s arm, the Doctor held it up to the dim light, tracing his finger over the shapes of the tally marks beneath the thick streak of ink. “It, ah, should still be legible.”

Casting a glance over towards the Doctor’s much larger pile of finished documents, Jamie felt guilt twist in his gut. Quite how long it had been he was not sure, but he had watched the light from the tiny window above them rotate across the rough stone of the opposite wall, dimming and growing orange with the sunset before eventually vanishing. Now all that was left was a small patch of moonlight, all but drowned out even by the greasy, tallowy candles, faint as they were. It would be dawn before he was finished, at the rate he was going.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, reaching over to take the page back from the Doctor. “I’ll copy it out again, I’ll -”

The Doctor laid a hand on his arm, quietening him. “It’s quite alright,” he said gently. “It’s not so bad. And you’re almost done.”

Throwing his pile a dirty look, Jamie snorted. “I’m only halfway through.” The cold was creeping back into him now that he was properly awake and alert again, stiffening his hand around the quill, and he shook his wrist gingerly to loosen it. “It’s alright,” he said hastily, blocking the Doctor from taking some of the unfinished documents from him. “I’ll get it done. It’s just – I’m no’ so fast as you, ‘cause of the reading thing, an’ -”

“Some of the handwriting is rather hard to read -”

“I’m _tryin’_ , really -”

“Perhaps we ought to get another candle, it might make things easier -”

“But I’m just no’ so good at this.”

“ _Jamie_.” Startled by the Doctor’s sudden firmness, Jamie looked up at him. The Doctor reached out to take his shoulders, twisting him around fully so they faced each other. “If I hadn’t thought you were up to this, I would have asked Victoria to help me.”

“She would’ve done a much better job,” Jamie mumbled. In truth, he had been wondering exactly why the Doctor had sent Victoria to help the militia, and asked him to sort through the monastery’s records. It was not as if Victoria was not _capable_ – despite her size, he would not like to cross her when she was upset – but he could not help but feel as if the Doctor had gotten their jobs mixed up. At least with the militia, he would have felt like he could try and keep pace with them, and Victoria would have had no problem at all with these scribbled little lists of numbers and books.

“ _Victoria_ ,” the Doctor said patiently, “is very good at telling people what to do.”

“Well – aye, she is.”

“And what the militia needed was someone to get them into shape. Could you do it better than she could?”

“Well, no, but...” Jamie’s objection crumbled and trailed off. He could imagine it all too well – Victoria as the self-appointed general, marching the town’s inexperienced rabble of a defence force up and down the monastery’s gardens, barring the gates, readying buckets of oil to be dropped onto any invaders outside the walls. She would surely be having much more fun than he was. “Aye, alright, she’d be good at that. But I’m no’ good at this.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” the Doctor said, tapping at the page that held his tally marks. “Look how many you’ve done.”

“But yours -”

The Doctor shifted his own stack of tallied pages away from Jamie’s protesting grasp. “Are purely down to the fact that I can read much faster than any human. _Including_ Victoria,” he added when Jamie opened his mouth. “You, ah, might be at something of a disadvantage compared to her, I’ll admit – though I think you underestimate yourself – but I wouldn’t go measuring your progress against mine.”

It was cold comfort, and Jamie slumped back against the knobbly wood of his chair, sighing. “I should’ve done more.”

“None of that, now. It’s been a long afternoon.” The Doctor broke into a yawn, flailing his arms out so Jamie had to duck to avoid being hit in the head. “I could take yours, if you like. I’m almost done with mine.”

“I can do it!”

“I’m not saying you can’t. Just that you look like you could do with a break.”

Principles aside, Jamie could not deny the fact that the idea of a break sounded almost heavenly. “I’m meant tae be keepin’ ye company,” he said, if a little half-heartedly. “Even if I cannae do anythin’ else.”

“Oh, I’ll be alright. Don’t worry about me.” Jamie hesitated, quill still hovering an inch above the ink pot. “Go on, go back to the dorms. I’ll wake you in the morning.”

“I’m no’ going tae the dorms.” Finally dropping the quill, Jamie crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m stayin’ here. I’ll sleep on the desk.”

“Jamie -” The Doctor’s mouth quirked into a bemused smile. “That won’t be very comfortable, you know.”

“Aye, I know. I’m too tired tae care.” Even as he spoke, Jamie smothered a yawn, his words summoning his tiredness to the forefront of his mind. “An’ this way I’ll still be with ye.”

“Your snoring will be, at least,” the Doctor countered playfully. “Might liven the place up.”

Scowling, Jamie swiped at him. “I don’t snore.”

“I can assure you, you do.”

“Hmph.” Jamie lowered his head, then jerked back up so the Doctor could take his papers and add them to his own pile. “Wake me in a wee while,” he said, as firmly as he could muster with his mouth pressed against his arms. “An’ leave me some. I’ll finish it off for ye.”

“If you insist. Oh!” The Doctor wriggled his way out of his coat, balling it up and holding it out for Jamie to take. “You, ah – might be more comfortable with this underneath you.”

“Thanks.” For all that it tended to jingle around like it was full of coins, the Doctor’s coat made a surprisingly comfortable pillow. Jamie nestled his head into it, breathing in the Doctor’s honey smell that had woven its way into the worn fabric. “Promise you’ll wake me.”

“I’ll wake you.” Dropping his papers, the Doctor shoved his hand against Jamie’s folded arms, prodding around until he had found Jamie’s hand and taken it. “I’ll hold onto you to remind myself.”

“Aye, alright.” Closing his eyes, Jamie smiled. “If ye like.”


End file.
